MEMOIR XV —chiefly those of the Reformation period, and then the New England theology. He attended the lectures of Drs. Chalmers, Welsh, and Duncan; and from Kdinburgh proceeded to Berlin, where, enrolling himself as a student, he had as professors Heng- stenberg, Twesten, Strauss, and the saintly Neander. Having completed his theological curriculum, he re- turned to Scotland and was licensed as preacher, and then ordained presbyter in 1846, the General As- sembly in his case specially dispensing with a year on account of his sufficiency in study. Those were stirring times in Scotland. Only three years before the great disruption in the Church of Scotland had divided the people into opposite camps. Hundreds of parishes were vacant, either so far as the Established or else the Free Church was concerned. Dr. Duncan had cast in his lot with the Free Church, and Alfred Edersheim did the same. The care of no less than four parishes, in the neighbour- hood of Kelso, was assigned to him. Days and months of hard work ensued. On Sundays he would preach in three or four different places—barn, smithy, hay-loft, road, hillside serving for church as _ the exigency of the case might demand. His earnest