8th October 1774. After a period of
training at home under a private tutor, he was sent to the Academy of
Dumfries to complete his preparation for the University. At the age of
fourteen, he entered as a student the United College of St Andrews, but
after an attendance of two years at that seat of learning, he was
induced, on the invitation of his relative Dr Currie, to proceed to
Liverpool, there to prepare himself for a mercantile profession, by
occupying a situation in the banking office of Messrs Heywood. After a
trial of three years, he found the avocations of business decidedly
uncongenial, and firmly resolved to follow the profession of his
progenitors, by studying for the ministry of the Church of Scotland. He
had already afforded evidence of ability to grapple with questions of
controversial theology, by printing a tract against the errors of
Socinianism, which, published anonymously, attracted in the city of
Liverpool much attention from the originality with which the usual
arguments were illustrated and enforced. Of the concluding five years of
his academical course, the first and two last were spent at the
University of Edinburgh, the other two at that of Glasgow. In 1797, he
was enrolled as a member of the Speculative Society of the University of
Edinburgh, and there took his turn in debate with Henry Brougham,
Francis Horner, Lord Henry Petty afterwards Marquis of Lansdowne, and
other young men of genius, who then adorned the academic halls of the
Scottish capital. With John Leyden, W. Gillespie afterwards minister of
Kells, and Robert Lundie the future minister of Kelso, he formed habits
of particular intimacy. From the Presbytery of Dumfries, he obtained
licence as a probationer in the spring of 1798, and he thereafter
accepted the situation of tutor in the family of Colonel Erskine
afterwards Earl of Mar, who then resided at Dalhonzie, near Crieff. In
this post he distinguished himself by inducing the inhabitants of the
district to take up arms in the defence of the country, during the
excitement, which then prevailed respecting an invasion. In the spring
of 1799, the parishes of Lochmaben and Ruthwell, both in the gift of the
Earl of Mansfield, became simultaneously vacant, and the choice of them
was accorded to Mr Duncan by the noble patron. He preferred Ruthwell,
and was ordained to the charge of that parish, on the 19th September.

In preferring the parish of Ruthwell to the better position and wider