waste their money in the public-house; and now you go and ask their wives and bairns whether R———— has done any good in the world.' 'Ay, but what do you say to,' etc.? 'That it was a great sin and shame to him; but that is no reason for refusing to own that he has done a vast deal of good before he did that piece of ill; and besides, I doubt if you or I are so good as to throw stones at him, etc., etc. Now I've listened to your criticisms on us, and pretty hard some of them were, so you will come up with me now, and hear what we've got to say.' He said, 'Well, I must say I like your way of taking things; I never heard them put in the way you have done; but I have not time now to come up; I have to take tea in half an hour with a mate.' I said, 'Still, you'll promise to come back next Sunday and hear us, and I may tell you, in secret, we shall have better speakers next time, and if you like, after the meeting is over, I'll have a talk with you. I never did meet one of your side before, but I've read some of your books. We won't call it a discussion, for I've not had any experience at arguing, and I suppose you are an old hand.' He gave a queer laugh, and said, 'Any way I never came across anybody on your side with half your sharpness and common sense; and besides, I must say _you_ are honest about it.' And then we shook hands, and he promised to come along next Sunday.... By the way, in my talk with the Deist my 'heretical' reading came in useful to me; for if I had not come through all that, I could not have heard his attacks on religion and kept my coolness, or taken them up the way I did; so it is _some good_; it will give me confidence in myself for the future—_another_ good thing." Pleasant interludes in his New College life were a session spent at Aberdeen University, as assistant to the Professor of Natural Philosophy, Mr. David Thomson, and two sessions spent at Berlin in the study of theology. At Aberdeen he had in his class Mr. Chrystal, now the celebrated Professor of Mathematics in the University of Edinburgh, whose abilities he repeatedly refers to in his letters. His work was enjoyable, and his relations with Professor Thomson of the most cordial kind. He was tempted in various ways to alter his life purpose, was offered a professorship of Natural Philosophy with a large salary in the Colonies, and was specially tempted to enter the medical profession. His closest friend at the University, Mr. James Shepherd, now a medical missionary of the United Presbyterian Church in India, was pursuing his professional studies, and with him he frequently visited hospital patients, finding a double interest in the work. Thus he writes:— "ABERDEEN, _March 14th, 1870_.