[1] After his father's death when he was very young, Erskine was left largely to the care of his maternal grandmother, Mrs. Graham of Airth Castle, a Stirling of Ardoch, Episcopalian and a strong Jacobite.
He travelled and made friends including Thomas Carlyle, Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, Alexander Ewing, F. D. Maurice, Lucien-Anatole Prévost-Paradol, Alexandre Vinet, Adolphe Monod, and Madame de Broglie.
[1] In 1831 the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland deposed John McLeod Campbell, minister of Rhu, for preaching the doctrine of universal atonement.
He emphasized the loving side of God's nature, supported the universal atonement of Christ, and was critical of the typical federal theology of the Scottish Calvinism of his time.
"[4] A quote shows some of his thinking: Christ, the gift of God's present forgiving love to every man and woman, is the door through which alone we can enter into our provision of hope.
The German church historian Otto Pfleiderer "regard[ed] [Erskine's] ideas as the best contribution to dogmatics which British theology has produced in the present century.