He made great proficiency in his studies, and not only became an experimental Christian, but also a very learned man. One evidence of which he gave in a short dispute with one of the then ministers of Dundee, while he was in that town: He met (in a house where he was occasionally) with the parson of the parish (for so the ministers were then called), who knew not Mr. Durham. After some discourse he fell upon the Popish controversy with him, and so put him to silence, that he could not answer a word but went sneakingly out of the room from Mr. Durham to the provost, craving his assistance to apprehend Mr. Durham as a Jesuit, assuring the provost, that if ever there was a jesuit in Rome he was one, and that if he were suffered to remain in the town or country, he might pervert many from the faith.----Upon which the provost, going along with him to the house where the pretended jesuit was, and entering the room, he immediately knew Mr. Durham, and saluted him as laird of Easter Powrie, craving his pardon for their mistake, and turning to the parson, asked where the person was he called the jesuit?--Mr. Durham smiled, and the parson ashamed, asked pardon of them both, and was rebuked by the provost, who said, Fy, fy! that any country gentleman should be able to put our parson thus to silence. His call and coming forth to the ministry was somewhat remarkable, for in the time when the civil wars broke forth, several gentlemen being in arms for the cause of religion, among whom he was chosen and called to be a captain, in which station he behaved himself like another Cornelius, being a devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, and prayed to God always with his company, &c. When the Scots army were about to engage with the English, he judged meet to call his company to prayer before the engagement, and as he began to pray, Mr. David Dickson, then professor of divinity at Glasgow coming past the army, seeing the soldiers addressing themselves to prayer, and hearing the voice of one praying, drew near, alighted from his horse, and joined with them; and was so much taken with Mr. Durham's prayer, that he called for the captain, and having conversed with him a little, he solemnly charged him, that as soon as this piece of service was over, he should devote himself to serve God in the holy ministry, for to that he judged the Lord called him. But though, as yet, Mr. Durham had no clearness to hearken to Mr. Dickson's advice, yet two remarkable providences falling out just upon the back of this solemn charge, served very much to clear his way to comply with Mr. Dickson's desire:--The first was, In the engagement his horse was shot under him, and he was mercifully preserved: the second was, In the heat of the battle, an English soldier was on the point of striking him down with his sword, but apprehending him to be a minister by his grave carriage, black cloth and band (as was then in fashion with gentlemen), he asked