Memorials of a Scotch Student. By the Rev. George Steven.
(Maim:Liven and Wallace.)—The subject of this memoir—Mr. Peter Thomson, Free-Church Minister at St. Fergus—bad a strange spiritual and mental training. He was reared in a home ruled by piety of the strongly Calvinistic type. His biographer tells us that he was early brought under a conviction of sin, which never left him. One of his childish experiences, related by Mr. Steven without a suggestion of its being other than salutary, was to go to sleep at night in terror that he should wake in hell. Entering as a student at Aberdeen, he came under the influence of Professor Bain, of whose narrow philosophy he unfortunately became a convinced and ardent dis- ciple. How he was to reconcile this philosophy with his old orthodox belief became for a while the dominant thought of his life. The outcome, in a man of such earnestness of conviction and great mental power, presents an interesting study. He was passion- ately eager for demonstration in what he believed, could not be satisfied, for instance, except he could see the actual results of the Atonement set forth as plainly and intelligibly as if they were the subject of a mathematical thesis. In the matter of Biblical criticism he was distinctly liberal, being a firm friend and supporter of Pro- fessor Robertson Smith. All the while, he never wavered in his hold of an ardent pietism. On the intellectual side, his life has the melancholy interest of great hopes disappointed by an early death. He was a devoted student, and had attained considerable mastery over the Oriental languages, when, before he had completed his thirtieth year, his career was cut short. An affection of the brain, possibly overtasked by all that he had gone through, ipental struggles as well as mental work, carried him off, after a few weeks' illness. The memoir leaves upon the reader the impression of a fine character and powerful mind, an impression with which the attractive physio- gnomy represented on the frontispiece is quite in keeping.
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