It is difficult for the present generation to fully estimate the feeling which the Disruption called forth, or the bitter antagonism which in many cases it engendered. The early training and all the strong personal convictions of William Nelson alike determined his sympathy with what claimed to be “The Free Church of Scotland.” The movement which led to this result had appeared to him, as to others, to furnish a practical solution of the difficulties which held his Covenanting fathers aloof from the National Church. The financial question was an important one, and long continued to be so; for not only churches but colleges had to be built, theological professorships to be endowed, poor congregations to be sustained, and the foreign mission field provided for. In all this work William Nelson was a generous co-operator; and to the close of his life he continued to respond with unstinted liberality to all the claims which it involved. His brother John, who became the esteemed pastor of the Free West Church of Greenock, was referred to after his premature death, in an eloquent tribute by Professor Blaikie, as “one whose natural gifts were of a high order, and whose early position as a student was most distinguished. He was known to be of far too independent a nature to fall into any line merely because it was traditional or conventionally proper. He had courage and capacity to strike out for himself; and he had spent much time in study in Germany at a time when few students went thither, and when such a course was regarded as somewhat suspicious.” The old Covenanting blood was in his veins; but he had hoped that the National Church was resuming its fidelity to the faith of his fathers, when the Disruption came, and he cast in his lot with the champions of freedom. Personal sympathy, therefore, as well as strong convictions, enlisted William Nelson on the side of the Free Church; but he never was a partisan. No trace of bitterness sullied the earnest zeal with which he promoted the cause that he had at heart. His convictions were clear, and his devotion to the Church unwavering; but this was never allowed to interfere with his personal relations to those who adhered to the Established Church, nor with his response to appeals made by them to his liberality. The testimony to this effect was freely given when his death recalled the incidents of earlier years. Among memoranda furnished to me by Mr. John Miller of Glasgow is the following note: “My sole companion in the railway carriage on my return to Glasgow, after attending Mr. Nelson’s funeral, was a stranger, a clergyman of the Established Church, who had travelled to Edinburgh on the same melancholy errand. In conversation I learned that Mr. Nelson and another to whom he referred had been friends of his from their earliest years. But at the Disruption they both became members of the Free Church. Thereupon, as the clergyman said, his