MEMOIR Xx1X In giving the foregoing sketch of the outward life and circumstances of Dr. Edersheim, it has not been possible sufficiently to indicate those mental characteristics and peculiarities which made his a nature difficult to understand—more especially by those of a wholly differing nationality and training— but, when once grasped, possessing a charm which was found to amount to a positive fascination. His mind was at first baffling; his qualities seemed to lead to contradictory, or at least unexpected, results. Thus the gentleness of his disposition would not betray him into yieldingness, and his large tolerance of, and sympathy for, widely-differing opinions, never resulted in the loss of his own convictions, or of what he had once grasped as the truth. A further ilus- tration of this was his position as a Churchman. He was at once too liberal-minded and too critically disposed to identify himself with any one party. Having certain sympathies with each, he adhered closely to none, but preferred to class himself simply as a loyal son of the Church. With consistency in its more rigid forms he had little or no sympathy (as may be seen by a reference to pp. 115-7 of the Tohu): he was convinced of the necessity of a de-