und; its driest
technicalities treasured up as unspeakably rare and precious. We
stumbled on, making discoveries at every step, and had all things
common. Each lesson in mental philosophy opened up some mystery of our
immortal nature, and seemed to bring us nearer the horizon of absolute
truth, which again receded as we advanced, and left us, like children
pursuing the rainbow, to resume the chase. In truth, we had much of
the character of childhood in these pursuits--light-heartedness,
wonder, boundless hope, engrossment with the present, carelessness
of the future. Our old world daily became new; and the real world of
the multitude to us was but a shadow. It was but the outer world,
the _non-ego_, standing at the mercy of speculation, waiting to be
confirmed or abolished in the next debate; while the inner world, in
which truth, beauty, and goodness had their eternal seat, should still
survive and be all in all. The play of the intellect with these subtle
and unworldly questions was to our minds as inevitable as the stages
of our bodily growth. Happy was it for us that the play of affection
was also active--nay, by sympathy excited to still greater liveliness;
and that a higher wisdom suffered us not in all these flowery mazes
to go astray."[2]

[Footnote 2: _Fragments of College and Pastoral Life_, pp. 24-25.]

From indications contained in the brief Memoir from which this
extract is taken, as well as from references in his correspondence,
it would appear that about this time he subjected his religious beliefs
to a careful scrutiny in the light cast upon them by his philosophical
studies. From this process of testing and strain he emerged with his
faith established on a yet firmer basis than before. One result of
this experience may perhaps be found in a letter to his father,
in which he tells him that he has been weighing the claims of the
Christian ministry as his future calling in life. He feels the
force of its incomparable attractions, but doubts whether he is
fitted in elevation and maturity of character to undertake so vast
a responsibility. Besides, he is painfully conscious of personal
awkwardness in the common affairs of life, and unfitness for the
practical management of business. And so he thinks he will take
another year to think of it, during which he will complete his
College course.

He spent the summer of 1839 with the Donaldson family at their country
seat at Auchairn, near Ballantrae, in south