GLASGOW
1815-1823
It cannot be said that Chalmers took very kindly to Glasgow. He missed
the wide expanse, the fresh air, the Arcadian simplicity of his
much-loved Kilmany; also, the intimate acquaintance he had with every
individual, and the comparative leisure of a country life. He found
himself 'cribbed, cabined, and confined' by streets and lanes and
'lands,' and flung upon dense masses of population that baffled every
attempt at individual acquaintance and interest. No doubt the people
were most kind and hospitable, and if dinners and other entertainments
could have satisfied him, he might have had them to his heart's content.
But, bent as he was on his especial work, and eager to launch new plans
of usefulness, it was irksome beyond endurance to have to devote whole
afternoons and evenings to eating and drinking, considering the very
trifling amount of good that could be expected to come of such
protracted engagements. And another thing that worried him was the
trifling matters of purely secular interest to which, as a director of
societies, or a member of public boards, he was expected to give
attention. Fancy an hour spent in debating whether a certain ditch was
to be covered over or not; fancy himself and his brother-directors
engaged in a long controversy whether pork soup or ox-tail soup should
be served to the inmates of an institution, and finally resorting to a
practical test--a portion of each kind being brought to each director to
taste! Then there was an expectation that much of his time should be
devoted to certain attentions that people liked to be paid to them.
Why, a funeral was hardly counted respectable unless there were four
clergymen in attendance! Much nervous energy was consumed in resisting
these unreasonable expectations, and if Chalmers had not come to be a
great man, and possessed of a fame which overbore everything, he would
certainly have suffered not a little in reputation from the necessity of
so often applying a snub where kindness was meant, and becoming a
transgressor where tradition had established its law.
During the eight years of his Glasgow incumbency many things happened,
worthy to be noticed even in a short biography like this. First of all,
his fame as a pulpit orator reached its climax; a climax never surpassed
and seldom equalled in the whole annals of the pulpit. In the next
place, his ideas of the advantages of the parochial system, brought from
Kilmany, were matured, expanded, and practically applied, with results
that demonstrated in a wonderful way their Christian wisdom and
excellence. Further, as an author, he rose to a higher platform; his
astronomical and commercial discourses, when published, spread his fame
far and wide; and a quarterly publication which he issued on the _Civic
and Christian Economy of Large Towns_ showed the zeal and wisdom with
which he grappled with his parochial obligations. Meanwhile, in his
closet, he was intensely occupied with the great problem of his personal
spiritual life; ever and anon placing himself in the immediate presence
of God, detecting and deploring his infirmities and deficiencies,
striving to walk with God in every undertaking, duty, and recreation;
trying hard to resist the subtle influence of human applause; and
longing much for that absolute consecration which would efface self, and
make God all in all. Still further, he was most assiduous in
affectionate duty to his friends and family; correspondence with father,
mother, wife, children, and friends went on without ceasing, even in the
busiest periods of public life, and always with an eager desire to
promote their highest good. And many an important call to other spheres
of labour arose from time to time to distract his attention; now he was
offered this important charge, now that; at one time he was entreated to
become a candidate for the natural philosophy chair at Edinburgh, and at
another for that of moral philosophy; now he was called to London to
preach a missionary sermon, and at another time he found it necessary to
make a long tour through England to acquire information about the
working of the poor-law system. That he was able to sustain life under
the prodigious pressure of all these varied engagements cannot but
surprise us, and cannot but excite our admiration of the remarkable
physical and mental energy that was able to endure it. But it had its
effects; and one of these was, that feeling himself unable to sustain
the pressure of such an accumulation of burdens, and desirous to
prosecute more vigorously his work as an author, he accepted, in 1823,
the unanimous offer made to him of the chair of moral philosophy at St.
Andrews, though the sphere in itself was absolutely insignificant, and
the salary not more than L300 a year.
The first sermon he preached in Glasgow, a few months before his
settlement as minister of the Tron parish, was on behalf of the Society
for the Sons and Daughters of the Clergy. The more intellectual part
was an exposition of the principles of Christian charity and his views
of pauperism, and the more eloquent part was a touching picture of the
family of a deceased clergyman, called to tear themselves from all the
beauties of their home, when their hearts were overborne with the far
darker melancholy of a father torn from their embrace. Dean Ramsay, who
heard this sermon, remarked, in his biographical notice of Chalmers to
the Royal Society of Edinburgh, that the tears of the father and
preacher fell like raindrops on the manuscript, and from many another
eye the like tokens of sensibility were seen to flow.
It is of his appearance on this occasion that an elaborate description
was given by Mr. J. G. Lockhart in his pseudonymous publication,
_Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk_. It has been reproduced in almost
every biography, but the picture is too striking to be wholly left out
here. After describing other features of the face, he remarks:--
'The eyes are light in colour, and have a strange, dreamy heaviness that
conveys any idea rather than that of dulness, but which contrasts in a
wonderful manner with the dazzling, watery glare they exhibit when
expanded in their sockets, and illuminated into all their flame and
fervour in some moment of high entranced enthusiasm. But the shape of
the forehead is perhaps the most singular part of the whole visage; ...
it is without exception the most mathematical forehead I ever met with,
being far wider across the eyebrows than either Mr. Playfair's or Mr.
Leslie's.... Immediately above the extraordinary breadth of this
region, in the forehead, there is an arch of imagination carrying out
the summit boldly and roundly, in a style to which the heads of very few
poets present anything comparable, and over this region again there is a
grand apex of high and solemn veneration and love.... Never perhaps did
the world possess an orator whose minutest peculiarities of gesture and
voice have more power in increasing the effect of what he says.' [The
writer then dilates on his defects in gesture and pronunciation, and the
disappointment caused by his first utterances.] 'But then, with what
tenfold richness does this dim, preliminary curtain make the glories of
his eloquence to shine forth, when the heated spirit at length flings
from it its chill, confining fetters, and bursts out elate and rejoicing
in the full splendour of its disimprisoned wings.... I have heard many
men deliver sermons far better arranged in regard to argument, and have
heard very many deliver sermons far more uniform in elegance both of
conception and of style; but most unquestionably I have never heard,
whether in England or in Scotland, or in any other country, any preacher
whose eloquence is capable of producing an effect so strong and
irresistible as his.'
It was soon after, that on hearing a speech of Chalmers's Lord Jeffrey
remarked, 'I know not what it is, but there is something altogether
remarkable about that man. It reminds me more of what one reads of as
the effect of the eloquence of Demosthenes than anything I ever heard.'
An extraordinary impression was produced by a sermon preached before the
Lord High Commissioner, during the proceedings of the Assembly, from the
text, 'When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon
and the stars, which Thou hast ordained; what is man, that Thou art
mindful of him? and the son of man, that Thou visitest him?' There was
a reference to the infidel argument that modern astronomy, through the
revelation by the telescope of the boundless multitude of worlds
existing in the heavens, had shown the earth to be too insignificant a
section of God's universe to justify the incarnation and sacrifice of
the Son of God. To refute this objection, Chalmers brought forward the
not less wonderful discoveries by the microscope of the minuteness of
God's works, and the conclusion was irresistibly established that there
is 'not one portion of the universe of God too minute for His notice,
nor too humble for the visitations of His care.'
This sermon was one of a series which Chalmers, on whom the degree of
D.D. had been conferred by the University of Glasgow (21st February
1816), was now delivering there. It had been an old practice of the
ministers of Glasgow, of whom there were then eight, to preach in turn
on Thursdays in the Tron Church, and Dr. Chalmers, deeming it fitting
that week-day sermons should have a character of their own, selected the
discoveries of modern astronomy as the basis of his course. The
interest and novelty of the subject, as well as the fame of the
preacher, drew extraordinary crowds to the church. In January 1817, the
series being completed, the sermons were published in a volume. The
demand was marvellous. Nine editions were called for within a year, and
nearly 20,000 copies were circulated. And, beyond the ordinary circle
of sermon readers, men like Hazlitt and Canning were arrested and
impressed. The sermons necessarily bore the marks of a hasty, and in
some respects a juvenile production; this Chalmers himself afterwards
acknowledged, and his own preference was given to another series--the
'Commercial Discourses,' which bore 'On the Application of Christianity
to the Commercial and Ordinary Affairs of Life,' and were published in
1820.
The Astronomicals had been reviewed, not quite favourably, by John
Foster, whose acquaintance Chalmers made about this time. But, so far
from showing any chagrin at the freedom of his comments, Chalmers at
once took Foster to his heart; and there was no public writer of the day
of whom he thought more highly, or whom he more warmly commended in
after days to his students. Some of the Reviews treated the sermons
severely; but from Christopher North, in _Blackwood_, they received
hearty commendation.
His popularity in Glasgow was almost surpassed by that which he found in
London. In May 1817 he preached in Surrey Chapel for the London
Missionary Society. His publisher, Mr. Smith, who accompanied him,
wrote home, 'All my expectations were overwhelmed in the triumph.
Nothing from the Tron pulpit ever excelled it, nor did he ever more
arrest and wonder-work his audience. I had a full view of the whole
place. The carrying forward of minds was never so visible to me; a
constant assent of the head from the whole people accompanied all his
paragraphs; and the breathlessness of expectation permitted not the
beating of a heart to agitate the stillness.'
Preaching for the Hibernian Society, he had a beautiful passage on Irish
character, which affected Mr. Canning to tears. 'The tartan,' he said,
'beats us all.' Mr. Wilberforce had brought Canning, along with
Huskisson and Lord Binning to the chapel, where they found Lord Elgin,
Lord Harrowby, and many others. In another chapel, on the same day, the
crowd that had gathered in the street was so vast that even the preacher
himself had great difficulty in getting admission. We know what a
compliment it is, _laudari a laudatis_. It was about this time that he
formed the acquaintance of the greatest pulpit orator of England, Robert
Hall, who wrote thus to him, 'It would be difficult not to congratulate
you on the unrivalled and unbounded popularity which attended you in the
metropolis.... The attention which your sermons have excited is
probably unequalled in modern literature.'
One might fill a whole volume with notices of his popularity, and of the
remarkable triumphs of his eloquence. To many, the wonder was increased
when they learned the circumstances in which his sermons were sometimes
composed. On one occasion, while enjoying his holiday, word was brought
to him of the sudden death of the Princess Charlotte, and of his being
looked for in Glasgow to preach on the day of her funeral. This letter
reached him on a Sunday, while he was preaching at Kilmany; posting on
Monday from Kirkcaldy to Queensferry, he got a seat on the mail to
Edinburgh; he arrived in Glasgow, after a night journey, between five
and six on Tuesday morning, and next forenoon preached one of his most
brilliant discourses. Wherever the coach stopped to change horses, he
rushed into the inn, wrote a few sentences, then rushed out to continue
his journey. And the sermon was not a mere appeal to feelings. A large
part of it consisted of an elaborate plea for a larger provision for the
spiritual necessities of great cities,--being the germ of that plan of
church extension and parochial cultivation which was to form the great
business of his life.
Twice every Sunday he usually filled his pulpit in the Tron Church; and
when latterly, in St. John's, he had the Rev. Edward Irving as his
assistant, the two supplied two pulpits--the parish church and a chapel
of ease--while other engagements were often undertaken in various parts
of the country. But the work of the pulpit could hardly be reckoned as
the chief of Dr. Chalmers's labours. His regard for the old parochial
economy of the Kirk of Scotland was a supreme feeling; he looked on
every minister as having charge of the people of the parish, and held
that it was his duty to watch over their spiritual condition. It was
his sense of the infinite importance of this, if Christianity was to
retain any hold on the people of our cities, that had made him such an
enemy of pluralities, and that roused his intense opposition to the
settlement of Dr. Duncan Macfarlane as minister of the High Church of
Glasgow, while he retained the office of Principal of the University.
He knew for certain that the result would be the almost total neglect of
a parish of upwards of ten thousand souls.
The population of the Tron parish was between eleven and twelve
thousand. Dr. Chalmers never devoted himself to the regular visitation
of the extra-parochial families that formed, to a large extent, his
ordinary congregation; where there was sickness or death, he would visit
them, but not in ordinary circumstances. His concern was with the
people of the parish. His first object was to ascertain their general
condition, and for this purpose he determined on a house-to-house
visitation. It was a Herculean task. He could but spend a few minutes
in each house, give a kindly greeting, put a few questions, perhaps
utter an earnest word of Christian counsel, and then invite the inmates
to the place where an evening service would be held for the benefit of
all. And on the whole it was a depressing task; for he found that a
great proportion of the people had no seats in any place of worship, and
were in deep ignorance on the high matters of faith and eternity. He
had his plans of reformation in readiness, but these involved the
enlistment and training of a large body of helpers. As a first step in
this direction, on, 20th December 1816, he ordained a few younger men to
the office of the eldership, calling on them very earnestly to eschew
the example set by many elders around them, who attended only to things
temporal, and to devote themselves, by household visitation and other
means, to the superintendence of the spiritual interests of their
districts. So earnestly was he devoted to the welfare of his parish,
that sometimes, when his family were in the country, he would live in a
humble room, at a rent of six shillings a week, in order to be near his
work; at other times he would dine in the little vestry-room attached to
his church.
Next, to meet the alarming ignorance of spiritual truth, he instituted a
Sabbath Evening School Society, and got a few members of his
congregation to work it. At the end of two years, upwards of two
thousand children were under instruction by this means. 'Our meetings,'
says one of the members, 'were very delightful. I never saw any set of
men who were so animated by one spirit, and whose zeal was so steadily
sustained. The Doctor was the life of the whole. He was ever most ready
to receive a hint or suggestion from the youngest or most inexperienced
member; and if any useful hint came from such a one, he was careful to
give him the full merit of it, generally by his name. Although we had
no set forms of teaching, we consulted over all the modes, that we might
find the best.'
The outstanding peculiarity of these schools was that they were
territorial. They were, in the first instance, at least, for the
children of the parish, and for these alone. The children were gathered
through the visitation of the Doctor's agents, the result being that, in
this way, an immensely larger number got the benefit of Sabbath-school
instruction than when a general system of schools prevailed, to which
any one might go or not go as he was inclined.
At a later period, he entered on a more costly educational undertaking.
In his Sunday schools, he found many children that could read in a way,
but with such hesitation and difficulty as showed that reading was no
pleasure to them, and that it was sure not to be practised as an
ordinary habit. Glasgow was then very deficient in day schools. When he
went to St. John's, he determined to remedy this defect, in so far as
that parish was concerned. Setting the example himself by a L100
contribution, he soon obtained the necessary funds. 'Within two years
from the commencement of his ministry, four efficient teachers, each
endowed to the extent of L25 per annum, were educating 419 scholars;
and, when he left Glasgow in 1823, other school buildings were in
process of erection, capable of accommodating 374 additional pupils; so
that the fruit of four years' labour was the leaving behind him the
means and facilities for giving, at a very moderate rate, a superior
education to no less than 693 children, out of a population of ten
thousand souls.'
The management of the poor was, as we have seen, a subject which, even
before he came to Glasgow, had begun to occupy his very earnest
thoughts, and on which he had formed decided views. To some prevalent
notions on the subject, especially in England, he entertained very
strong objections, for he held that their tendency was to increase
pauperism, so that the more money that was spent, the greater did the
evil become. There were two beneficial influences in particular that a
system of compulsory poor-rates was fitted to impair--the spirit of
independence, and the readiness of friends and relatives to assist the
poor. When it came to be understood that the poor had a legal claim to
be supported from the rates, they would cease to make any exertion to be
thrifty and independent, and their friends and relatives would cease to
charge themselves with their maintenance. Dr. Chalmers was persuaded
that, so long as these two beneficial influences remained in active
operation, the poor might be maintained at a far less cost than would be
possible under a scheme of compulsory rates. His plan was to fall back
on the New Testament method--to have a body of deacons specially charged
with the care of the poor; to assign to each deacon a certain limited
proportion of the parish, instruct him to make very full inquiries into
the case of every one applying for help, endeavour in every case where
destitution was caused by want of work, to find work for the applicant;
or where there were friends or relatives able to help, to draw on their
resources before application should be made to the public fund. So long
as he was minister of the Tron parish, there were insurmountable
difficulties to carrying this plan into execution. But the creation of
the new parish of St. John's altered the case. Dr. Chalmers was
determined not to accept the appointment to that parish unless he should
be allowed full liberty to carry out his plans for the maintenance of
the poor. After a considerable amount of fighting, he at length got all
the liberty he asked. The turmoil and worries to which he was exposed
in contending with old opinions, old practices and prejudices of all
sorts, were like to prostrate him. But as soon as this battle was over,
another remained to be fought. He must prove, by practical
demonstration, not only that his scheme was workable, but that in its
effects it would be a great improvement on the other. He must undertake
the management of all the poor in a parish of ten thousand souls--the
poorest parish in the city. With this great undertaking he now
proceeded to grapple.
What he undertook was, to relinquish all claim to the fund raised by
assessment, and provide for the poor of St. John's parish through the
church-door collections alone. It was arranged that the then actual
inmates of the town's poorhouse, connected with the parish, would be
maintained as before, but that no new cases would be sent there; all the
new outdoor cases, and all the other cases of pauperism, were to be
defrayed from the congregational fund. Hitherto the cost of the poor in
the parish had been at the rate of L1400 per annum, whereas the
collections amounted to only L480. Thus, though not at first, yet
ultimately, St. John's Church would be responsible for an amount of
pauperism that had hitherto cost L1400.
The unwearied visitation of the deacons produced highly beneficial
results. Sometimes very appalling cases of distress were found to be
wholly fabulous. A poor woman applied to a deacon to bury a grown-up
daughter who had died that day. He refused until he had made a personal
visit. This he did, but no such person could be found. Next day the
woman renewed her application: a young man was sent by the deacon to
verify the woman's statement; but she disappeared in the crowd. When
the matter was stated to another deacon, he wondered whether the woman's
husband, whom he had helped to bury six months before, were still alive.
The two went in quest of the family, and found the buried husband and
the dead daughter performing all the functions of life.
In other cases, relatives were induced to take charge of destitute
children, or older children to take charge of younger. In one case, the
father and mother of a family composed of six children both died; three
of the six were earning wages, and three were unable to work. The three
elder applied to have the three younger admitted to the poorhouse. It
was pointed out to them by Dr. Chalmers's agents that this would be a
great slur on the family; and a small quarterly allowance was promised
if they should keep together. The advice was taken, and the quarterly
allowance was but twice required. The family lived together, gaining a
character for independence and brotherliness that in itself must have
been a considerable help to their success in life. And many other such
cases occurred.
The result of these operations, during the three years and nine months
when Dr. Chalmers personally presided over them, was instructive and
striking. The whole number of new cases admitted on the roll was
twenty, and the annual cost of these was L66. The number of cases
originally committed to Dr. Chalmers was ninety-eight, of whom
twenty-eight had died, and thirteen had been displaced in consequence of
a scrutiny, leaving (with the twenty new cases) seventy-seven on the
roll, the cost of whose yearly maintenance was L190. In the second year
of their operations the church was able to take the whole of the
poorhouse inmates connected with the parish off that institution, at an
expense to themselves of L90 a year. In this way the pauperism that had
cost the town L1400 was now managed at an expenditure of L280. And the
pauperism itself became a decreasing quantity. 'The St. John's deacons,
mingling as they did familiarly with all the families, and proving
themselves by word and deed the true but enlightened friends of all, did
far more to prevent pauperism than to provide for it.'
It cannot be said that his theory of pauperism was a hasty scheme, the
result of mere benevolent impulse, or that Chalmers did not take
sufficient means to acquaint himself with the subject in all its
aspects. He had already given expression to his ideas in the _Edinburgh
Review_, and shown that the matter had engaged his most earnest study.
Later, he made an elaborate journey through England in order to become
personally acquainted with the places and the persons there most
conversant with the subject. This visit embraced Liverpool, Manchester,
Birmingham, Gloucester, Wells, Salisbury, Southampton, Portsmouth,
London, Bury St. Edmunds, Bedford, and Nottingham. The journey occupied
seven weeks, and in the course of it he came into contact with many of
the public men who were interested in that class of subjects,
conspicuous among whom were Lord Calthorpe and Mr. Fowell Buxton. The
anti-slavery leaders, such as Mr. Z. Macaulay, Mr. Babington, and Mr.
Clarkson, were generally sympathetic, but their energies were too much
absorbed in the anti-slavery movement to admit of their throwing them
into Dr. Chalmers's scheme. Indeed there were but few men of mark at
that time interested in social questions. In his sense of the urgency
of these questions, Dr. Chalmers was before his age. The more immediate
object he had in view, that of gathering information, was sufficiently
accomplished; but there is no indication that he made much progress in
indoctrinating public men with his views. If ever he cherished the hope
that a party would arise in England who should deal with pauperism on
his lines, that hope was never fulfilled. Nor was it the privilege of
Dr. Chalmers to find his experiment carried out thoroughly in other
places, or even to witness its permanence in his own chosen locality.
For several years it continued to prosper; in 1830, ten years after the
commencement of the undertaking, he informed a committee of the House of
Commons that the whole annual expense of St. John's pauperism for the
preceding year had been L384; and in 1833, Mr. Tufnell, an English
Poor-Law Commissioner, reported: 'The system has been attended with the
most triumphant success; it is now in perfect operation, and not a doubt
is expressed by its managers of its continuing to remain so.' Why,
then, did the system not extend? Mainly, we believe, because Chalmers
stood alone in that unrivalled energy which could not only conceive and
plan the scheme and fight down its opponents, but likewise find
competent agents, and inspire them with his own spirit in order to carry
it into effect. It was a scheme that demanded a strong magnetic power
on the part of its head to overcome the _vis inertiae_ of ordinary men,
and send them into the field, and keep them in the field, vigilant,
alert, unwearied, and hopeful. No doubt his principles were acted on to
a certain extent in many parishes where there was no pressure of
poverty;[2] but we are not aware of any instance in which his plan was
boldly made to do duty in the heart of a large city parish.
[2] _E.g._ Dirleton, under Rev. Mr. Stark. See Hanna's _Life_, iii.
121.
And why did the experiment not become permanent? Because two conditions
under which it was established were not kept. One was, that a law of
residence should be established between the parishes of the city, so
that St. John's should not be burdened with a pauperism which it had
done nothing to create. The other condition was, that so long as St.
John's kept its own poor, it should be exempted from any assessment for
the poor generally. Neither of these conditions was kept. Moreover, the
expense for lunatics and exposed children grew at a much greater rate
than the population, and a chapel of ease, expected to be a great help,
turned out a failure. And at no time did the authorities of the city
and the other parishes give the countenance that might have been
expected to so successful and economical a scheme. The result was that,
in 1837, the parish of St. John's lapsed into the general system of
Glasgow. And later, after a vehement opposition from Dr. Chalmers, the
present law, supporting the poor by assessment, was passed, which
virtually put an end to the old paternal method of administration. It
was easy to represent the plan of Dr. Chalmers as a niggardly system,
which doled out mere driblets of charity, not sufficient to keep soul
and body together. But it was forgotten that one of its main objects
was to keep those subsidiary streamlets running which the affection of
relatives and the compassion of neighbours supplied, as well as to
encourage the independence, the industry, the thrift, and the sobriety
which would have kept pauperism afar off. The undeniable result of the
compulsory system has been an enormous addition to the cost of
pauperism, and we fear, it must be added, a serious diminution of those
good old Scottish habits which discouraged and prevented its growth.
The increase of drinking has tended greatly not only to the growth, but
to the unmanageableness of pauperism. If the drink-curse could be
effectively dealt with, there would be no need for a poor-assessment;
the churches of the country, as in time past, would be quite able, as
they would be cordially willing, to support the poor.
In connection with the literary labours of Dr. Chalmers, reference has
already been made to the publication of the _Astronomical Discourses_ in
1817 and the _Commercial Discourses_ in 1820. In addition to these, we
have to note a volume of _Miscellaneous Discourses_ published in 1819.
While this volume was passing through the press, he expressed his belief
that it would bring another nest of hornets about him, in the shape of
angry critics and reviewers. 'It has been singularly the fate of my
publications to be torn to pieces in the journals, but at the same time
to be extensively bought and read.' An edition of seven thousand copies
of the new volume was printed, but the result was the reverse of what he
anticipated; the journals did not cut it up, nor did the public buy it
up, with the same avidity as before. But even in this our day of vast
editions, seven thousand copies of a volume of sermons would be an
unprecedented undertaking.
A much more out-of-the-way publication, in the successive numbers, was
the _Civic and Christian Economy of Large Towns_. This was most
emphatically a Chalmerian project. It originated about the time of his
appointment to St. John's, in his determination to set himself right
against a calumnious charge that he was secretly aiming at a vacant
chair in the University of Edinburgh, and ready to leave in the lurch
the friends who were to aid him in the St. John's undertaking. Nothing
could have hurt him more than a charge of underhand scheming. A
fugitive pamphlet might have served his purpose; but a wider project
took hold of him, of enlightening his congregation and the public
generally from time to time on all that concerned the prosperous
administration of the parish, and of large towns generally. The first
number was published on 24th September 1819, and the succeeding numbers
followed quarterly in unbroken succession until his removal to St.
Andrews. We see again how far he was in advance of his age in the
importance which he attached to a sound Christian economy of large
cities. Seventy-eight years ago, large towns were far fewer than they
are now, and of course much smaller, and they had scarcely begun to
attract attention as a novel and difficult feature of our social
condition. Yet Chalmers was all alive to their importance, and keenly
pondered the measures necessary for their administration. And the
result shows how true his forecast was. Not only had he thought out the
problem, and arrived at its solution, but he had set to work practically
to carry his plan into execution; and to this he now added the
additional function of expounding and defending it in a quarterly
publication. And all the while he was carrying on his unrivalled work in
the pulpit; he was superintending all the machinery of the parish; he
was cultivating most conscientiously the vineyard of his own soul; and
he was interesting himself in all that concerned his friends, and in a
thousand other objects and projects that were continually pressing upon
his attention.
It is not easy to describe the earnest personal dealings with God which
he maintained during the whole time of this busy Glasgow ministry. To
those who can enter into this high phase of life, no aspect of his
character is more remarkable. Sometimes the intensity of his thirst
after a high spiritual life appears in his letters, but more directly in
his diary. Immediately after the commencement of his Glasgow ministry,
he formed an almost romantic friendship with a young man of the name of
Smith, whom he looked on as his first convert. Alongside of this youth
(as of Mr. Anderson at Kilmany) he placed himself as if they were on the
same footing--fellow-learners, fellow-pilgrims, fellow-suppliants,
equally in need of the grace and guidance of God. 'O God, do Thou look
propitiously on our friendship. Do Thou purify it from all that is
base, sordid, and earthly. May it be altogether subordinated to the love
of Thee. May it be the instrument of great good to each of our souls.
May it sweeten the path of our worldly pilgrimage: and after death has
divided us for a season, may it find its final blessedness and
consummation at the right hand of Thine everlasting throne.' During Mr.
Smith's last illness he wrote to him at least once a day and saw him
very often. Sometimes he would carry his manuscript to his room and
write his sermon there. It was during an absence of Dr. Chalmers from
Glasgow that he died. 'On my return, Thomas Smith was dead. I have
been thrown into successive floods of tenderness.' In the prayer
offered at his funeral, which has been preserved, he expressed the
warmest thanks for all the grace given to this young man, and all the
good his example and influence had done; and for himself as well as for
others he prayed most fervently that they might all 'retire from the
scene with hearts bettered, with minds resolved to forsake all for
Christ, with affections weaned from this world and all its lying
vanities.'
Very beautiful, too, was the outpouring of his feelings towards her who
had become the partner of his life, his best beloved and most longed for
on earth. Before she was his wife the prayer had risen, 'O my God, pour
Thy best blessings on G. Give her ardent and decided Christianity; may
she be the blessing and the joy of all around her; may her light shine
while she lives; and when she dies, may it be a mere step--a transition
in her march to a joyful eternity.' And afterwards he wrote to her: 'I
have to request of my dear G. that she stir herself up to lay hold of
God. Do act faith on the great truths of divine revelation. Do cry
mightily to God for pardon in the name and for the sake of Christ; and,
relying on the power of His blood and of His Spirit, commit yourself to
Him in well-doing as unto a faithful Creator.'
How well worthy Mrs. Chalmers was of being the wife of such a man was
best known to those who enjoyed the intimate friendship of the family.
The late Dr. Smith of St. George's, Glasgow, who knew them intimately,
from having been Dr. Chalmers's assistant, held her to be 'in all
respects a helpmeet for her distinguished husband. She strengthened his
hands and encouraged his heart in every labour of love. As a wife, a
mother, a mistress, a friend, a disciple of Him who was meek and lowly
in spirit, few are better entitled to affection's warmest tribute.'
But it was in the direct communings of his spirit with God that the
depth of his humility and the ardour of his desires for a higher life
were most apparent:--
'_March 3rd_, 1818.--Cannot say much of my walk with God. Do not burn
with love to man. _5th_.--Cannot yet record a close walk with God. Got
impatient with a man who called on me and with ---- in the evening. O
for a humbler and nearer course of devotedness to the will of my
Saviour. _6th_.--Have not yet attained such a walk with God that in
looking to the day that is gone I can see anything like the general
complexion of godliness. _7th_.--Cannot yet speak to my walk with God.
Will a quiet confidence in Christ not bring this about? _8th_.--Not yet.
O my God, help me. _9th_.--Not yet. Trust that I am finding my way to
Christ as the Lord my Strength. O guard me against the charms of human
praise!'
At a later period he is equally humble and equally fervent.
'_Feb. 24th_, 1822.--Was greatly impressed with Erskine's talk about
realising God every quarter of an hour. O heavenly Father, let me do
it, and free me from the sense of guilt towards Thyself, and enable me
rightly and rejoicingly to lift up my head, too, in the presence of mine
enemies. _25th_.--Disturbed, but feel great alleviation in habitual
realisings of God, which I have had all this day. _28th_.--O my
Saviour, I can do nothing for Thee! _April 7th_.--It is humiliating
amid the busy externals of religion to think how little my soul is
taking up or making progress therein. _9th_.--O my God, cause me to
hold thee in constant remembrance. Restore energy to me, but let me
never lose sight of my creatureship and my worthlessness. May I be pure
in heart, and so see God. Loose all my bonds, and may I serve Thee with
delight and thankfulness all my days.'
It is obvious to modern readers, though it was not to him, that when he
was most depressed, a share of the depression was due to physical
exhaustion. The number, the constancy, and the intensity of his labours
could not but dull the faculties that soar highest of all, and call as a
remedy for physical rest; while, like so many others in the like
circumstances, he was laying all the blame on the wickedness or the
earthliness of his heart.
With the members of his family he maintained the closest fellowship.
When he heard of his father having had a paralytic stroke, he hurried to
his bedside, and was present at the end. His affection and respect for
him were unabated. 'My dear father is lovely in death. There is all
the mildness of heaven upon his aged countenance.' Writing on the
following Sunday to his much-loved sister Jane (Mrs. Morton), he says:
'It is truly affecting when the thought of former Sabbaths in Anster
presents itself to my mind, and I think of it as the day he loved, and
how the ringing of the bells was ever to him the note of joyful
invitation to the house of God; the sight of the people going to and
from the church--the interval--the everything connected with the
Sabbath, bring the whole of my father's habits in lively recollection
before me, and call forth a fresh excitement of tenderness.'
Towards his widowed mother he ever acted with the most tender and
respectful affection. His letters to her were both frequent and
regular, full of concern for her temporal and spiritual comfort, and
manifesting that interest in all the members of the family which is so
grateful to a mother's heart.
But the fullest outpourings of his heart, in his correspondence with
friends at a distance, were to his sister, Mrs. Morton. Well could he
assure 'my ever dearest Jane'--'one of the purest and most delightful of
all my feelings in this world of many distractions is the feeling of
tenderness which I ever associate with you and all your concerns'; nor
was he less sincere in saying that he could think of 'no more delightful
scene of occasional rest and recreation than the neighbourhood where
Providence had ordained her habitation, so rich in the beauties of
nature, and still richer in the pieties and charities of the excellent
people that lived in it.' To her he writes freely of all the events of
his life, and still more of the vicissitudes of his Christian
experience, and of the ever open refuge alike from domestic sorrows and
spiritual infirmities which we have in the grace of our Saviour and in
the love of our Father. All the more tenderly did he write when the
deep shadow of bereavement fell upon her home; when a heart full of
humility and somewhat disposed to despondency was liable to be swallowed
up with over much sorrow, and to forget (as he reminded her) that even
when the day is overcast and lowering, the sun is shining with
undiminished lustre.
His eldest brother, James, who lived in London, was a hard subject to
deal with. He seemed to shut himself up from all his family, and to
stand in awe lest they should come to visit him. He had resolutely
abstained from hearing his brother preach after he became famous. Hardly
any case could have more convincingly verified the remark, how unlike
brothers may be to each other. James had a kind of mania for balancing
his personal accounts to the minutest fraction, and on one occasion
worried himself for months in the endeavour to account for a penny, till
a year after, when about to cross a toll-bridge, he remembered that he
had crossed it a twelvemonth before, and forgot to enter the penny in
his accounts. Yet Thomas bore with him patiently, and dealt with him
affectionately but faithfully, evidently in the hope that he might
change. And before the end he did become more amiable. In announcing
his father's death, Thomas pathetically, and with an obvious practical
design, remarked that if their beloved parent looked down upon them,
'nothing could afford his spirit a more delightful spectacle than that
of his children seeking the Gospel which they had aforetime despised,
praying for grace, and not ceasing to pray, till they had obtained.'
His own children were hardly old enough, while in Glasgow, for more than
the ordinary fondness of a father. Yet we find him, in his absences from
home, and when driven hither and thither by manifold engagements,
writing, in imitation of print, those elaborate letters to his little
daughter Anne, of which her future husband, Dr. Hanna, has given us a
sample in the second volume of the _Life_ (p. 410). One cannot but
admire the extreme neatness and clearness of the printing, a memorable
contrast to the hieroglyphics he used to dash off on ordinary occasions,
which were so illegible that, in his early days, when a letter came from
him, his father suggested that it had better be kept till he should
himself arrive to read it for them. Once, in the absence of Mrs.
Chalmers, when he had been constituted head nurse, an elder and a
deacon, on calling in the evening, found him squatting on the floor and
playing at marbles with the children. And nothing would serve him but
that they should join in the game.
The ever-warm affection of Dr. Chalmers for all the members of his
family was the more remarkable that he was so rapidly extending the
circle of his friends, receiving so much notice from the most
distinguished men and women of the country, and carrying on so
voluminous a correspondence with many of them. Among those whose
acquaintance he made in his Glasgow period we may note a few. There was
James Montgomery, Moravian and poet, whom he saw at Sheffield; whom he
greatly perplexed when he told him that when at the Moravian settlement
of Fulneck, near Leeds, he had invited the Scotch lads to the inn, and
found there were no fewer than 'saxtain or savantain of them'; but whom
he charmed no less by the admiration he expressed for the Moravian
missions, and by his undertaking--what he more than fulfilled--to raise
L500 for them in the course of the year. Another new friend was Mr.
Wilberforce, for whose character, talents, and work he had unbounded
respect, but who amazed him by the singularity of his movements--'he
positively danced and whisked about like a squirrel.' He had an
important correspondence with him, beseeching him to support the repeal
of the Corn Bill, which he held to be the great danger to the country.
There was the Gladstone family at Liverpool, with whom he was greatly
taken--William could then have been but a boy of six (A.D. 1817). Legh
Richmond visited him at Glasgow, and Chalmers says, 'I had most
congenial talk with him, and am greatly humbled by the very superior
attainments of other Christians.' When Edward Irving, in hopeless
disappointment, was about to leave the country, it was Chalmers that
arrested him, having formed such an opinion of his pulpit gifts and
noble character that he engaged him as his assistant. We have already
noticed some of the friends he met when engaged in his poor-law inquiry;
to these we may add Robert Hall, the cleverest man in conversation he
ever knew, but surpassed by John Foster in the depth and grandeur of his
thoughts. With Mr. Malthus, too, he had much congenial converse. About
this time he found a close ally in Mr. Douglas, the proprietor of
Cavers, where he had been assistant in his youth, who became so well
known as a thoughtful Christian writer, and who placed more than one
L500 in his hands to assist him in his schemes for St. John's. Among
other things that Mr. Douglas owed to Chalmers's example and influence
was the habit of systematic working. Mr. Erskine of Linlathen was
another Scottish layman for whom he had remarkable regard, his
spirituality of mind being to Dr. Chalmers most impressive and
stimulating. Mr. Erskine's work on the _Freeness of the Gospel_, though
looked on suspiciously by some very orthodox persons, was to Dr.
Chalmers very delightful. Afterwards Mr. Erskine adopted some views with
which he could not sympathise. With Lord and Lady Elgin he appears to
have been on terms of most intimate friendship. Mr. Colquhoun of
Kellermont may be added to the list of distinguished Scottish friends;
and, besides these, there were his coadjutors in the St. John's
undertaking, the members of his congregation, and nearly all the men of
mark and Christian worth in the community of Glasgow.
His manner of life in Glasgow was as simple and regular as was possible
for one so full of occupation and so eagerly sought after by all sorts
of people. As a rule, the forenoon was set apart for reading and
composition, and no one was allowed to intrude on him then. But
sometimes two or three rooms would be filled with persons waiting for
him, and it was remarked that, however overwhelmed, he had a kindly
smile and greeting for all. The afternoon was devoted to pastoral work;
then, if possible, he had a walk in the Botanic Gardens or elsewhere;
dinner was at half-past four, and very often he had some public
engagement in the evening. In the course of this busy day he found time
to read aloud to his wife Milner's _Church History_ or some other such
book. His hospitality was boundless. Breakfast, dinner, tea, and
supper, almost every day but Sunday, brought a succession of guests;
for, apart from his own large circle, hardly a stranger visited Glasgow
who did not bring an introduction, and whom he did not invite to his
house. His conversation generally was singularly genial, racy, and
lively; whoever was in his society was charmed. Formal dinner-parties he
held in great abhorrence as a waste of time and worse, and very seldom
did he join them. For occasional recreation, his favourite resort was
his native Fifeshire; but in the suburbs of Glasgow and other parts of
the country he had dear friends with whom he delighted to spend an
occasional day or more. And, though no man had more respect for the
poor, or more pleasure in his intercourse with them, he had an especial
delight in the society of families of the highest rank, when refinement
was blended with Christian worth, and the obligations of high station
were conscientiously and gracefully fulfilled.
Most memorable in the history of Glasgow and in the history of Scottish
Christianity were the eight years of labour spent by Dr. Chalmers in
that city. Of individual cases of conversion the number was beyond
reckoning; beginning with his dear friend, Thomas Smith, and ending with
a Camlachie weaver--a reckless infidel till Dr. Chalmers came across
him, but won by the simplicity and earnest sympathy which he showed in
weekly visits during the months when he was dying of consumption. And
the circumstances of his various converts were very different. The
thoughtless young officer, who entered his church with the crowd as he
would have entered the theatre; the fashionable lady, whose curiosity
led her to hear the great popular orator; the busy merchant, with no
thought nor desire beyond material things; the aspiring student, bent
only on literary distinction--each person, arrested and brought to
Christ by the force of his appeals, represented the many classes from
among which, as Dr. Hanna tells us, it was the privilege of Chalmers to
gather recruits for the Kingdom of Heaven.
But more than that: under Chalmers the tide of public sentiment turned
decisively to evangelical religion. Before he came, evangelical
preaching had been looked on as a combination of sour fanaticism and
weak sentimentalism; under his preaching it attained its true rank and
glory as the very essence of the Gospel message. Before his time, as
the population of the city grew from year to year, thousands had been
quietly allowed to fall away from all Christian observances, and to form
a community of paganism, leavening the city with carelessness and
corruption. It was his powerful voice that roused attention to the evil
and the danger, and organised the machinery best fitted to grapple with
it. Previous to his time, even the most earnest of the ministers in
their week-day ministrations had seldom gone beyond their own
congregations, or thought much of the careless and godless families
around them; it was Chalmers that, by the emphasis he laid on the
territorial method, brought into operation that system of aggression
which affords the only hope of arresting and reclaiming the outcast
mass. Before his time infidelity was doing its deadly work among the
more intellectual and cultivated classes, and the spirit of indifference
was widely spread even where a formal profession of religion continued;
it was in a large measure the influence of Chalmers that restored a
living faith in Christ and in redemption, and aroused concern in that
class of society for the life to come.
Still more remarkably, perhaps, had Dr. Chalmers succeeded in inspiring
men and women in Glasgow, young men very emphatically, with the spirit
of Christian service. His 'agency,' as he called it, resembled the
followers of Saul, 'a band of men whose hearts God had touched.' In
after years they formed the very _elite_ of the earnest Christian laymen
of the West; and to this day, though all of them have passed away, their
fervour and devotedness are still found in some of their children and
children's children.
Nor had he failed to secure the esteem and affection of the great
community of Glasgow. They honoured him personally, and they were proud
of his greatness and fame. They were ready with their purses to support
whatever scheme he deemed it necessary to set on foot. A more attached
or warm-hearted company could not have been found anywhere than the
three hundred and forty friends who, ere he left, sat down together at
the largest dinner-party that had ever assembled in the city in honour
of a single individual.
Why, then, did he abandon the field where his labours had been so
eminently successful?
Simply because these labours had grown to such multiplicity and variety
as to demand an expenditure of bodily and mental energy that could not
be continued.
His incumbency had lasted during eight years of his prime--from
thirty-five to forty-three. Happily he had not been prostrated by any
severe illness, and the systematic regularity of his life, with the
attention he had given to diet, sleep, and exercise, had kept him from
breaking down. But who that thinks of all he was doing, the problems
with which he was grappling, the schemes he was working, the constant
demands of the pulpit, the incessant labours of the parish, the use he
was making of the press, the toil of his correspondence, amounting on an
average to fifty letters a week, the perpetual turmoil in which he was
living, amid crowds of visitors, and all the other fruits of unrivalled
popularity, as well as the demands of an increasing and growing family,
and his desire to keep up friendly intercourse with his brothers and
sisters--can fail to see that the indefinite continuance of such a mode
of life was more than could be thought of? Had it continued much
longer, a breakdown was inevitable. Very pathetically he wrote to one
of his most intimate friends, Mrs. Coutts, of the constant feeling of
exhaustion which at times was like to overbear him altogether. Besides,
Chalmers was coming to see that through the press there opened to him a
way of spreading his views and extending his usefulness which was as
full of promise as it was agreeable to himself. But as a minister of
Glasgow he could not do through the press what, with a little more
leisure, he could fairly expect to accomplish.
And then the prospect of an academic chair was very congenial. It had
been his earliest dream while the world was all before him, and it had
not yet lost its charm. The tenacity of his affections was very
remarkable. Towards the close of his life we shall have occasion to
note the long-continued vitality of a strong but unavowed attachment
which had sprung up in his boyhood, and it is no wonder that to such a
nature the early vision of an academic chair continued to retain its
brightness and its fascination. Once and again he had set it aside when
it seemed to be within his grasp, because his Glasgow experiments and
arrangements were not ripe enough for the change. Now, when the Glasgow
work was fairly consolidated; when the bustle and pressure of Glasgow
life had become almost unbearable; when, through the press, the prospect
had opened of impregnating not Glasgow only, but the whole empire with
his views; and when his own _Alma Mater_ had sent him a unanimous
invitation to fill a chair which formed a connecting-link between
philosophy and religion,--it is not wonderful that he made up his mind
to the wrench that was to sever him from his Glasgow friends, and
resolved to accept a chair in the university with which his earliest
memories were connected, and in which he could look forward to a career
of peace and comfort to himself, and great usefulness to his church and
country.