ERSKINE, JOHN, D.D., son of the preceding; a celebrated Scotch preacher and author of various essays and pamphlets; a prominent leader on the Evangelical side in the General Assemblies; was minister of the Old Greyfriars, Edinburgh, and the colleague of Principal Robertson; is remembered for a retort in the pulpit and for another in the General Assembly; the former was to a remark of his colleague, Principal Robertson, “If perfect virtue were to appear on earth we would adore it.” ...  “Perfect virtue did appear on earth and we crucified it”; and that other in the General Assembly was “Rax (reach) me that Bible,” as certain Moderates in the court began derisively to scoff at the proposal to send missions to the heathen (1721-1803).

ERSKINE, JOHN, OF DUN, a Scotch Reformer, supported Knox and Wishart; was several times Moderator of the General Assembly, and assisted in the formation of “The Second Book of Discipline” (1509-1591).

ERSKINE, RALPH, a Scotch divine, brother of EBENEZER (q. v.), with whom he co-operated in founding the Secession Church; his sermons and religious poems, called “Gospel Sonnets,” were widely read; one of the first of the Scotch seceders, strange to contemplate, “a long, soft, poke-shaped face, with busy anxious black eyes, looking as if he could not help it; and then such a character and form of human existence, conscience living to the finger ends of him, in a strange, venerable, though highly questionable manner ... his formulas casing him all round like the shell of a beetle”; his fame rests chiefly on his “Gospel Sonnets,” much appreciated at one time (1685-1752).

ERSKINE, THOMAS, LORD, a famous lawyer, youngest son of the Earl of Buchan, born in Edinburgh; spent his early years in the navy, and afterwards joined the army; resigned in 1775 to enter upon the study of law; called to the bar in 1778; a king’s counsel in 1783; created a baron and Lord Chancellor in 1806; was engaged in all the famous trials of his time; an unrivalled orator in the law courts; his speeches rank as masterpieces of forensic eloquence (1750-1823).

ERSKINE, THOMAS, OF LINLATHEN, member of the Scottish bar, but devoted in an intensely human spirit to theological interests, “one of the gentlest, kindliest, best bred of men,” says Carlyle, who was greatly attached to him; “I like him,” he says, “as one would do a draught of sweet rustic mead served in cut glasses and a silver tray ... talks greatly of symbols, seems not disinclined to let the Christian religion pass for a kind of mythus, provided one can retain the spirit of it”; he wrote a book, much prized at one time, on the “Internal Evidences of Revealed Religion,” also on Faith; besides being the constant friend of Carlyle, he corresponded on intimate terms with such men as Maurice and Dean Stanley (1788-1870).

ERWIN, a German architect, born at Steinbach, Baden; the builder of the western facade of the cathedral of Strasburg (1240-1318).