XX MEMOIR
more a stranger in a strange land, with broken health,
with little or no means beyond what lay in his own
powers, and with a family dependent on his exertions.
His confidence in God as the Father, however, never
failed him, and was shortly to be amply justified. At
the request of the proprietor of the hotel in which
he lodged he consented to take a Sunday afternoon
service. The attendance at this on the first day of
meeting numbered some half-dozen persons. By the
third Sunday the congregation was so large that it
had overflowed into the passages and down the stairs.
Friends speedily gathered round him. The want of
a church for the Scottish residents of, and visitors
to, Torquay was specifically felt and formulated; a
site was given, funds were collected, and a graceful
church, dedicated to St. Andrew, shortly stood in the
centre of the pleasure-gardens. Here, once more,
Dr. Edersheim’s influence as a preacher was widely
felt and acknowledged, and here for some years he
continued working and giving of his best for the
service of God. Here also it was that he lost his
first wife, who left him seven daughters and one son,
and that he subsequently married Sophia, youngest
daughter of the late Admiral John Hancock, C.B.