44 JOSIAS CHRISTOPHER GAMBLE 



proceeding to their fields of labour, frequently 

 pass through a short course of training in 

 surgery and medicine, and no small portion 

 of their ministry is devoted to attending to 

 the bodies as well as to the souls of men ; 

 they commend their gospel as being a 

 message from "The Merciful One/' who 

 "healeth diseases" as well as " pardoneth 

 iniquities;" so in the end of the last century 

 it was customary for theological students who 

 were being trained for the Irish Presbyterian 

 Church to attend a course of medical lectures. 

 One of the classes that Gamble attended at 

 Glasgow University was presided over by 

 Dr. Cleghorn, professor of chemistry. The 

 student in theology was so stirred by the 

 enthusiasm and eloquence of his teacher, and 

 so fascinated by his studies in natural science, 

 that he would pass his long vacations in the 

 prosecution of these studies and in making 

 chemical experiments. His friends did not 

 at all admire the turn his tasks had taken ; 

 we fancy that in the fumes he had created, 

 they must have detected heresy. Gamble's 

 researches, however, were not those of a 

 philosophical dreamer, he was practical in his 

 pursuits. The farmers of the neighbourhood 

 in which he lived grew flax upon their lands, 



