the study of divinity in connection with the Associate Synod-a dissenting body afterwards merged in the United Presbyterian Church. In 1750 he was appointed minister of the Secession Church at Haddington, and in 1768 he was elected professor of divinity under the Associate Synod, discharging the duties of this office for a period of twenty years.

His chief works are a Dictionary of the Bible, published in 1769, and his Self-Interpreting Bible which appeared in 1778; General History of the Christian Church, in 1771; A Compendious View of Natural and Revealed Religion; Harmony of Scripture Prophecies, and many other short religious and devotional treatises. The two first-named works were long popular, and are so still among some sections of Christians.

A grandson of the preceding divine, Dr. John Brown, attained distinction as a minister and a professor of the Secession Church and as a biblical expositor. In 1806 he was appointed minister of a church at Biggar, but in 1822 he was called to Edinburgh, where he became professor of pastoral and exegetical theology in connection with the Associated Synod. As a preacher and lecturer he was masterly, at once vigorous, manly, warm, and exceedingly pathetic, and always rivetted the attention of his hearers.

He is the author of various theological works, amongst which may be mentioned his Expository Discourses on the Epistles of St. Peter, the Epistle to the Galatians, and the Epistle to the Romans. In 1860 Dr. Cairns published a Life of Dr. Brown, to which Dr. Brown's own son, John Brown, M.D., added some very interesting particulars, which appeared in Hora Subseciva in 1861.

Dr. Henry Hunter was born at Culross, Fifeshire, in 1741. He was educated at the University of Edinburgh, licensed to preach in 1764, and in 1766 appointed one of the ministers of Leith. In 1769 he visited London, preached in several of the Scottish meeting-houses, where his sermons attracted much attention. Soon after he received an invitation to become minister of the congregation in Swallow Street, London, which he declined. In 1771, however, he accepted a call from the London Wall congregation, and removed to his new field of labour. This congregation became warmly attached to him.

6 Born in 1784, died in 1858. The religious writings of Dr. James Fordyce, Dr. John Drysdale, and Dr. Robert Walker, were of some note, and widely read in their day.

He was also appointed chaplain to the Scottish Corporation in London; and in 1790 he became secretary to the Corresponding Board of the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge in the Highlands. and to both institutions he rendered important service.

In 1783 the first volume of his History of the Patriarchs and of Jesus Christ appeared, which was extended to seven volumes. This work had reached a seventh edition in 1814. He published two volumes of his sermons, and Lectures on the Evidence of Christianity in one volume. He also attained some distinction as a translator of French and German works. He commenced the publication of a popular History of London and its Environs, which he did not live to complete. Dr. Hunter was a genial and benevolent man, and his social characteristics and conversation were much esteemed. He died in 1802.

Dr. William L. Brown, a son of the Rev. William Brown, was born at Utrecht on the 7th of January, 1755, where his father was then minister of the Scottish Church; but in 1757 his father was appointed Professor of Ecclesiastical History in the University of St. Andrews, and he returned to Scotland and assumed the duties of the chair. Although young Brown was sent to the Grammar School, he mainly received his early education from his father at home. At the age of twelve he entered the University of St. Andrews, where he studied seven years. In 1778 he was elected minister of the Scottish church

at Utrecht. He discharged his pastoral functions with zeal and credit; but trying times were approaching. In 1787 he was appointed Professor of Moral Philosophy and Ecclesiastical History in the University of Utrecht. His "Essay on the Natural Equality of Men, the Rights that result from it, and the Duties which it imposes," was published at Edinburgh in 1793, and the following year reprinted at London. It attracted considerable attention, and may be characterised as a discriminative discussion of the subject. Brown resided at Utrecht, and continued to discharge his professorial duties till the invading French army approached, when, in January, 1795, he embarked with his family in an open boat and landed in England. On returning to Scotland in the summer of 1795 he was appointed Professor of Divinity in Marischal College, Aberdeen, and a few months later he was made Principal of the College. He entered on his functions at the opening of the ensuing session, and delivered an elaborate course of theological lectures. He held the offices of Pro

fessor and Principal until his death, which occurred on the 11th of May, 1830, in the seventy-sixth year of his age.

Besides the Essay mentioned above, he wrote pamphlets on the Revolutionary War with France, which were published in 1795-98. A volume of his sermons appeared in 1803. His important Essay on the Existence of a Supreme Creator was published in 1816 in two volumes, and gained the first Burnett prize of £1250; the second prize was awarded to Dr. Summers, Bishop of Chester. His other large work-A Comparative View of Christianity and of Other Forms of Religion which have existed in the World—was published in 1826 in two volumes. This work evinced great research, and it is composed in a clear and calm style.

Dr. George Hill, principal of St. Mary's College, St. Andrews, one of the leaders of the moderate party of the Church, is the author of Lectures on Divinity, which were published after his death, by his son, Dr. Alexander Hill. They are chiefly remarkable for clearness in the statement of doctrines, and candour in representing the views of opponents.

Dr. Andrew Thomson 7 was a vigorous and able minister of the Scottish Church. He was first appointed minister of Sprouston, in the presbytery of Kelso; afterward of the East Church in Perth; and finally of St. George's Church in Edinburgh. In 1810 The Scottish Christian Instructor appeared under his editorship, and it exercised a considerable influence on Scotch ecclesiastical questions. In the General Assembly he was a strong, an able, and a vehement debater, and an unsparing opponent in controversy. He was the author of various sermons and lectures.

Dr. Thomas Chalmers 8 was the most distinguished of the Scottish divines of the first half of the present century. He was a native of Anstruther, in Fife; his father was a merchant there, and Thomas was sent at the age of twelve to the University of St. Andrews. Thus he received little preparatory grounding in his education, which may account for his lack of critical power as a scholar. Having finished his studies for the Church in 1803, he was appointed minister of Kilmany, a country parish in his native county. In this place his energy soon manifested itself; he lectured on chemistry in the towns of his district; he joined a volunteer corps;

7 Born in 1779; died in 1831.

8 Full and interesting details of Dr. Chalmers are given in Dr. Hanna's Memoirs of him.

he wrote a book on the resources of the country, and pamphlets on some of the topics of the day. When the Edinburgh Encyclopædia was projected, he was asked to be a contributor, and engaged to write the article "Christianity."

In 1815 Dr. Chalmers removed from Kilmany to the Tron Church in Glasgow, and, in 1819, to St. John's. In this city he worked incessantly, and his fame rose rapidly. Yet it was said by competent eye-witnesses that his appearance and manner in the pulpit were his not prepossessing; he read his sermons and adhered closely to paper. But his power lay in the intensity and earnestness, the vehement and concentrated glow of his mind, throwing out his native eloquence like the blasts of a furnace." Chalmers worked hard for the benefit of his congregation, and struggled to the utmost to excavate the practical heathenism of the city.

In 1823 Dr. Chalmers was appointed professor of moral philosophy in the United College of St. Andrews; and in 1828 he was elected to the chair of divinity in the University of Edinburgh. A description of his inaugural address in the divinity chair in Edinburgh has been preserved, of which the following is a part:" As to his discourse, all felt far more deeply than they could worthily declare, that it was a most glorious prelude, and that at once and for ever his right to reign as king in the broad realms of theological science, and

9 A writer in the London Magazine gives an interesting account of Dr. Chalmers' appearance in London :-When he visited London, the hold that he took on the minds of men was unprecedented. It was a time of strong political feeling ; but even that was unheeded, and all parties thronged to hear the Scottish preacher. The very best judges were not prepared for the display that they heard. Channing and Wilberforce went together, and got into a pew near the door. The elder in attendance stood close by the pew. Chalmers began in his usual unpromising way, by stating a few nearly self-evident propositions neither in the choicest language nor in the most impressive voice. "If this be all," said Channing to his companion, "it will never do." Chalmers went on the shuffling of the congregation gradually subsided. He got into the mass of his subject; his weakness became strength, his hesitation was turned into energy, and, bringing the whole volume of his mind to bear upon it, he poured forth a torrent of the most close and conclusive argument, brilliant with all the exuberance of an imagination which ranged over all nature for illustrations, and yet managed and applied each of them with the same unerring dexterity, as if that single one had been the study of a whole life. "The tartan beats us," said Mr. Channing, we have no preaching like that in England."

His style became the rage among the young preachers in Scotland, but few of them could do more than copy his defects. His glowing energy, enthusiasm, and powerful mind were wanting.

to rule over their own individual minds as a teacher, was as unequivocal as his mastery over a popular assembly." 10 He relinquished this chair in 1843, when he seceded from the Established Church.

Dr. Chalmers' collected works, published in his lifetime, extended to twenty-five volumes, and treat on a wide range of subjects-natural theology, evidences of Christianity, moral philosophy, commercial and astronomical discourses, sermons, church and college endowments, church extension, political economy, etc. After his death nine more volumes, edited by Dr. Hanna, were added to his works, thus bringing his collected writings up to thirty-four volumes.

The chief characteristics of Chalmers' writings are energy and earnestness, and a great variety of illustration. His knowledge was comprehensive, embracing science as well as a wide circle of litera

ture.

He also had an unusually accurate appreciation of the mind, habits, feelings, and the daily life of the Scottish people, which was one, if not the chief, source of his power and influence. In method and in style his writings are defective. His favourite mode of exposition is to present his main theme, idea, or subject in an almost endless variety of forms and different points of view, with the aim of impressing it on the mind of his hearers. He was a man of great sagacity, a real genius; and the work which he accomplished is a monument of his noble faculties, admirably directed for the good of his fellow

men.

Dr. Ralph Wardlaw, 11 a minister of the Independent Church in Glasgow, was the author of Discourses on the Socinian Controversy, which appeared in 1814, and have often been reprinted. He also published a number of sermons and theological essays. He was an able divine and an impressive preacher, and worked hard for the moral and spiritual welfare of Glasgow.12

Dr. R. T. Candlish 13 was one of the ministers of Edinburgh who seceded from the Established Church in 1843. He was a vigorous and influential member of the Free Church, and a ready and able

10 One of his pupils, Professor Masson, has stated that Chalmers' course in theology was "really a course of Chalmers himself, and of Chalmers in all his characters. The students were carried through the whole circle of Chalmers' favourite ideas."-Macmillan's Magazine, Vol. XI., p. 127.

11 Born in 1779, died 1853.

12 Macgeorge's History of Glasgow, p. 454, 1881. A life of Dr. Wardlaw was published by Dr. W. L. Alexander in 1856.

13 Born in 1803, died in 1873.