ce become for
a Scottish theological student to attend a German University. Indeed,
until the early Forties of last century, such a thing was scarcely
known. Then, however, the influence of Sir William Hamilton, and the
interest in German thought which his teaching stimulated, created the
desire to learn more about it at its source.

It is natural that this movement should have affected the students of
the Secession Church before it reached those of the Establishment; for
not only were they less occupied with the great controversy of the day
and its consequences, but their short autumn session left them free
to take either a winter or a summer _semester_, or both, at a German
University without interrupting their course at home. The late Dr.
W.B. Robertson of Irvine used to lay claim to having been the pioneer
of these "landlouping students of divinity." John Ker and others
followed him; and when Cairns set out in 1843, quite a large company
of old friends were expected to meet at Berlin. Cairns's departure was
delayed by the illness of James Russell, who was to have accompanied
him, but he set out towards the end of October. He had accepted an
appointment as _locum tenens_ for four weeks in an English Independent
chapel at Hamburg, which delayed his arrival at Berlin until after
the winter _semester_ had commenced. But this interlude was greatly
enjoyed both by himself and by the little company of English merchants
who formed his first pastoral charge, and who, on a vacancy occurring,
made a strong but fruitless attempt to induce him to remain as their
permanent minister.

Arrived in Berlin, he joined his friends--Nelson, Graham, Wallace,
and Logan Aikman. With Nelson he shared a room in the Luisenstrasse,
where they set up that household god of all German students--a
"coffee-machine," with the aid of which, and some flaming _spiritus_,
they brewed their morning and evening beverage. They dined in the
middle of the day at a neighbouring restaurant, on soup, meat,
vegetables, and black bread, at a cost of threepence.

At the University, Cairns heard four or five lectures daily,
taking among others the courses of Neander on Christian Dogmatics,
Trendelenburg on History of Philosophy, and Schelling, the last of
the great philosophers of the preceding generation, on Introduction
to Philosophy. Of these, Schelling impressed him least, and Neander
most. Through life he had a deep reverence for Neander, whom he
regarded,