free and unensnared souls, that had never been lighted up by the false lights and aspirations of human life, or been fascinated by the evil of the world, though sympathizing with all that is good in it, and enjoying it becomingly; who give us, so far as human character now can do, an insight into the realms of light, the light that comes from neither sun nor moon, but from Him who is the light everlasting!"
Such "a favorite of heaven" was Henry Drummond, from his boyhood full of brightness and frolic on to that sick-room at Tunbridge Wells, which was transformed by the beautiful spirit of the sufferer into a kind of temple. There was a unique charm alike in his personality and in his writing and speaking, and the secret of this charm is to be found, partly at least, in Canon Mozley's suggestion that it "does please the Almighty to endow some of His creatures from the first with extraordinary graces."
Henry Drummond was singularly fortunate in his home life, with its congenial environment of affection, culture, and robust evangelical religion. He was a school-boy to his finger-tips—fonder of extra-academical life than of Latin grammar and the dates of English history, an enthusiast in sports and holiday rambles, "an easy first" in puzzles, tricks, and conundrums, and a keen observer of "the wonders of nature." The school-boy's instincts indeed never died out of his heart, and no religious teacher of our day could win his way so quickly to a boy's confidence.
PROFESSOR DRUMMOND'S UNIVERSITY LIFE.
He was but a lad of fifteen when he entered the University of Edinburgh in 1866. In his undergraduate course he gave no indication of achieving future distinction; nor indeed did his college contemporaries Robert Louis Stevenson and "Ian Maclaren." He did his class work conscientiously, but he was bitten with no enthusiasm for classical studies or philosophy. The only chair whose subject fascinated him was one outside the ordinary curriculum, the newly instituted chair of geology. Here he gained the class medal and formed a life-long friendship with the professor of geology, Sir Archibald Geikie. Outside the university class-rooms, the tall stripling, with his finely-cut features and athletic figure, was a persona grata in the social life of his fellow-students. His breezy sunniness, the kindliness of his fun and humor, the sparkle of his quiet remarks, and his never-failing courtesy and evenness of temper made him a favorite in every company. He was less versed in Thucydides and Kant than some of his companions, but then he knew about interesting books—Ruskin's and George Eliot's and Mark Twain's. No student could have been more human, more social, more alive to the interestingness of the world he lived in; but there was in Henry Drummond, even in those early days, an ethereal element which added piquancy to his personality.
In view of what has been so often and so justly said of the magnetic impressiveness of his platform speaking, it is worth while recalling that in his undergraduate years he was a successful mesmerist. One of his fellow-students he had so completely under his power, that by touching a certain spot on his head with his finger, he could make him do or say anything he willed—sometimes with grotesque results in the students' debating societies. On one occasion, a mesmerized subject mistook what Drummond wished him to do with the poker, and only by the exercise of a ready wit did the mesmerist avert a dangerous blow. Occasionally he was induced to delight an evening party with a mesmerizing séance, but from a conviction of the possible harm that might be done to the persons mesmerized, he had renounced the exercise of his peculiar gift long before the close of his student days.
Drummond entered the New College—the Edinburgh Theological Hall of the New Church of Scotland—in 1870, along with Dr. James Stalker and the friend of his boyhood in Stirling, Dr. John Watson. During the first three years of his theological course he still gave no sign of his brilliant future. He was a winsome personality, beloved by all, and sought after by the brightest students for his ever-delightful companionship; but he was no intellectual leader in those days. Like "Ian Maclaren," he had a keen interest in the great English writers of the Victorian era, but he never threw himself with zest into theological study. His chief academic ambition, even in his theological course, was to obtain the degree of doctor of science in the university.
A TERM OF STUDY IN GERMANY.
During the summer of 1873 he spent a semester at the University of Tübingen, in the heart of the charming scenery of the
