Ralph, D.D., was born at Dalkeith, Edinburghshire, December 22, 1779. A great-grandson of Ebenezer Erskine, minister of Stirling, with whom originated the Secession Church, he was educated for the ministry in connection with the Burgher branch of that Church; but toward the conclusion of his studies he began to have doubts as to taking the formula required of its preachers, ministers, and elders, and he, with most of his immediate relatives, connected themselves with the Congregational body, which began at that time to spring up in Scotland. Of that body he became in the course of time one of the main pillars and brightest ornaments. In 1803 he was ordained pastor of a newly formed Congregational church in Glasgow; and of that church he continued pastor to the end of his life, a period of full half a century. In 1811 an institution was established in Glasgow by the Congregational churches for the education of young men for the ministry, and Mr Wardlaw was appointed the theological tutor, an office which he also held to the end of his life. He subsequently received invitations to a similar office in Hoxton Academy, London; in Rotherham College, Yorkshire; in Spring-Hill College, Birmingham; and in the Lancashire College, near Manchester, four of the colleges of the Independent churches in England; but though considerable temptations were held out to him, he, to his honour, declined them all. In 1814 he published Discourses on the Socinian Controversy, in 1 vol. 8vo, a very able and valuable work, and which may be said to have laid the foundation of his fame as a theological writer. He had previously published some smaller pieces, and this was followed in subsequent years by numerous other works, on a great variety of subjects, chiefly of a theological nature. After his death his lectures on Systematic Theology were published in 3 vols. 8vo. In the controversies of the day he often mingled; and he was distinguished above most men not only by the ability, but by the candour, good temper, and Christian feeling with which he wrote and spoke. After a highly honourable and useful life, he died December 17, 1853, within a few days of completing the seventy-fourth year of his age. See Dr L. Alexander's Memoir of Ralph Wardlaw, D.D.