Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 8.djvu/68

16 communion, for the sake of certain convictions which he regarded as of Divine authority, and therefore not to be concealed or tampered with. He and the few who had seceded with him, stood solitary and apart, although surrounded by thousands of professing Christians; and while the multitudes crowded to churches where congenial ordinances awaited them, their only remedy was to retire to "an upper room." This they did, and amidst these meetings for mutual prayer and religious conference, in the absence of a regular ministry, the humble efforts of Christopher Anderson were peculiarly acceptable to the little flock. The result was easy to be guessed at; here was a minister in embryo, as well as the nucleus of a congregation. Mr. Anderson, indeed, had previously been so far prepared for the assumption of the sacred office, as to have resolved to devote his life to the work of a missionary to India; but the verdict of his medical advisers, who convinced him that his constitution was utterly unfit for an Indian climate, and the growing necessities of that small community with which he was connected, naturally turned his thoughts into another channel. The emergency was evidently at home, and to find his field of labour he had only to cross his own threshold. With this conviction, he resolved to become the spiritual pastor of the small flock with which he had allied himself; and in so determining, it is not easy to estimate the full value of the sacrifice. At the age of twenty-one, he must reverse his habits, commence a life of study, and encounter the difficulties of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, although he had neither liking nor natural aptitude for the acquirement of languages. And when all this was done, he must deliberately devote himself to a life of poverty and self-denial, for the people of his ministry would in all likelihood be too few and too poor to afford him that decent subsistence which is justly deemed so essential to the clerical office. He commenced with the necessary step of relinquishing his clerkship in the Insurance Office. "Were I to continue in my present situation," he writes, "I should in all probability succeed to an income of ₤300 or ₤400 a year, but this is of no account in my estimation compared with being more immediately employed in the service of Christ * * * Emolument in this world I freely forego. The riches of it I neither have nor want; may I be but of some service to God before I go to the grave!" He entered the necessary studies at the university of Edinburgh in 1805, and as his time was brief, and the case urgent, he attended during a single course the classes of Greek, Logic, Moral Philosophy, and Chemistry. As it was judged necessary that his theological training should be conducted in England, and under the community to which he belonged, he repaired to Olney, and afterwards to Bristol, in which last city he attended the Baptist college. The course of education he now underwent was of that practical kind which the dissenting bodies in England have for the most part adopted, in which their students are employed in itinerating and preaching while attending the several classes. In this way Mr. Anderson acquired experience in the duties of his calling over an extensive field of action, and the acquaintanceship of many of those eminent divines with whom English dissenterism at this period abounded. As little more, however, than a twelvemonth was occupied with this probation, it may be guessed how few his opportunities must have been for the study of theology as a science, especially for the service of such a hard-headed reflecting people as the Scots; and how much was still to be learned and acquired by his own unaided application.

In 1806, Mr. Anderson returned to Edinburgh; and having engaged a small meeting house, called Richmond Court chapel, he there assembled the little