ST. ANDREWS UNIVERSITY
1823-1828
On the 9th November 1823 Dr. Chalmers preached his farewell sermon at
Glasgow, and on Friday the 14th he delivered his introductory lecture at
St. Andrews. He had not a single day of rest between the toils of the
office he laid down and those of the office he took up. Four of his
most esteemed Glasgow friends had accompanied him to St. Andrews in
token of gratitude for the past and good-will for the future. At first
Dr. Chalmers was alone, and for a time he was the guest of his old
friend, Professor Duncan. It was not till the beginning of 1824 that
Mrs. Chalmers and his children joined him.
St. Andrews had been familiar to him from his boyhood, and its
historical associations had dawned on him gradually, but with a firm
hold, as such things usually impress boys. Its traditions went back to
a remote antiquity. Fordun's legend of the Greek saint, Regulus, being
ordered by the Lord to carry the bones of St. Andrew into the
'north-west corner of the earth,' was too obviously the offspring of
superstition to be much regarded; yet it seemed to indicate that the
'East Nook' was one of the earliest seats of Christianity in Scotland.
In pre-Reformation times St. Andrews had been the headquarters of the
Roman Church, and, under successive archbishops, Patrick Hamilton and
George Wishart had been burnt at the stake for their noble testimony to
the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Before their day, Peter Craw, a Bohemian,
and thus of the same stock as the Moravian Church for which Dr. Chalmers
always had a very special regard, and other witnesses for the truth had
perished in the flames. It was here that John Knox first opened his
mouth as a preacher; hither, too, he retired for a time at the close of
his life, and preached in the church when danger threatened him in the
metropolis. Here, also, Andrew and James Melville, Robert Rollok, Robert
Bruce, Robert Blair, Samuel Rutherford, Thomas Halyburton, and many
other familiar names in the history of the country, had gathered wisdom
as students, or imparted it as professors, or as ministers of the
Gospel. The first university in Scotland had been set up at St.
Andrews, and men like Buchanan and Melville had made it illustrious by
their learning. Nor was it very long since Chalmers himself had found
the powers of his intellect awakened as he sat in its mathematical
class-room. It must have been with no ordinary feelings that he
returned as a professor to his _Alma Mater_, and girded himself for the
duty of influencing its students; not, however, in the spirit or with
the aims of his early years, but under the influence of those intense
evangelical convictions that, twelve years before, had revolutionised
his soul.
During the first session, in preparing his lectures, he was truly from
hand to mouth; to be but a few days in advance of the time for their
delivery was all that he could achieve. His second session, 1824-25, was
regarded as the most brilliant in his academic career. The number of
students was more than double what it had ever been in former years, and
the enthusiasm was intense. Chalmers was well aware of the fear
entertained in some quarters that, amid the blaze of his popular
eloquence, he would not be able to attain to an academic level in the
more solid qualities of thinking and exposition of thought, appropriate
to a university. But in point of fact there was more than enough of
solid thought and ingenious speculation in his lectures to do away with
any such impression. Eloquent they often were, nor did he scorn the aid
of imagination and illustration in handling the topics of his course;
but his main object was to exercise the minds of his students, and to
set them thinking upon his themes.
At the very outset, he disabused his class of the idea that moral
philosophy was the same as mental philosophy. Moral philosophy was the
science of ethics, the science of duty, and, in his view, it ought to
embrace duty in all its relations, and to make use of all the light that
could be brought to bear on that high theme. In particular--and here
was the peculiar feature of his course--he desired to make the fullest
use of what had been communicated on this subject by supernatural
revelation. He justified this method of proceeding by an illustration.
If natural philosophy were divided into two courses, and if one of them
should relate to terrestrial objects and such parts of astronomy as
might be prosecuted _without the telescope_, it would be strange indeed
were the professor to make no allusion to that instrument, and to
ignore, or even repudiate, all the light which it threw on the general
scheme of things. So also, in investigating the science of ethics, it
would be an extraordinary thing if no use were made of the Christian
Revelation, supposing that its authenticity could be established as a
revelation from heaven. Natural theology would form an important branch
of his subject; but, in its very nature, natural theology was an
incomplete and inadequate science. Following the light of nature, it
proved the insufficiency of that light; it created the thirst and the
longing for more light than it could itself supply. This further light
revelation brought in. He held moral philosophy to be the study that
ought immediately to precede that of theology; without theology it was
incomplete. It would be no part of his course to set forth at full
length the evidences for the Christian Revelation, but he would give a
general view of them; he would show at least that there was a _prima
facie_ presumption in favour of the divine origin of Christianity; and,
therefore, that it was consistent with the principles of the Baconian
philosophy to make use of its light in dealing with the great questions
of moral obligation.
In fact, Chalmers in this matter took ground precisely opposite to that
more recently taken by one of his countrymen--the munificent founder of
the Gifford Lectures. According to Gifford, it becomes us to investigate
the whole subject of natural theology and moral obligation without the
slightest reference to any alleged supernatural revelation. This he held
to be the sound, impartial, unprejudiced course of true philosophy, and
the best way of attaining to simple, absolute truth. In the view of
others, this is like the act of a man blindfolding himself before
entering on a difficult investigation; or of a man walking in sparks of
his own kindling, while, if he chose, he might be at work under the
bright influence of electric light.
One might have thought that, after finishing his first course at St.
Andrews, Chalmers would have held himself entitled to a long rest. But
as soon as the session was ended, he set himself, during the fortnight
that intervened, to prepare for the General Assembly. The question of
pluralities, the question of pauperism, and the question of the amount
of time to be spent by students in theological study were to be before
the house, and Chalmers was interested in all. On one of these
occasions he came into collision with Dr. Inglis, the leader of the
Assembly; but, even on a point of order, Chalmers was equal to him, and
in a division, he carried his motion. At the close of the Assembly, on
the invitation of Mr. Leonard Horner, he took part in a meeting in
Edinburgh on behalf of a then infant institution--the School of Arts.
The motion which he made on that occasion was seconded by Sir Walter
Scott. This was the only occasion on which these two eminent men
appeared on the same platform and were associated in the same work.
The Assembly is past, but the time of rest has not yet come. Dr.
Chalmers hurries back to Glasgow. Now that he has got breathing-time,
his heart returns to the great experiment which he had begun there, and
an unrestrainable eagerness takes possession of him to help it on. The
next six weeks are spent in incessant labour in the old field. In
looking back on this period he remarked in his peculiar phraseology, 'I
think that I never spent a season of more crowded occupancy.' On his
way to Glasgow he took Perth, where he preached a missionary sermon on a
week-day, the collection amounting to L81, 8s. In Glasgow he preached
steadily in the chapel of ease, and he had the great satisfaction,
though of course it was but a temporary one, of adding four hundred to
the sittings let, no doubt to accommodate the many persons who were bent
on hearing him during the few weeks of his stay. During these six weeks
he preached ten times in the chapel, writing all the lectures, and
apparently the sermons too--seven of his texts being from the Epistle to
the Romans, part of the exposition afterwards published. Apart from
spiritual impulse and spiritual fruit, his six weeks in Glasgow
benefited the chapel to the tune of L200. In the midst of his incessant
public work he contrived to write to his wife a full journal of all his
proceedings, and he gave her most explicit instructions to give the
children a feast of strawberries on the arrival of each letter, and to
let them know that they were from him. With all his greatness and
eloquence, it is amusing to find him showing that nervousness in the
prospect of a speech at a public dinner which but few men have been able
to overcome. 'It kept me anxious all day.' One is reminded of Sir
Robert Peel, who could hardly eat anything at public dinners when a
speech was forthcoming, but sat in misery, crumbling his bread. 'One
touch of nature makes the whole world kin.'
A source of greater trouble and annoyance arose after his Glasgow visit
in connection with a promise to deliver a missionary sermon at Stockton,
near Manchester. After his arrival, he found that an advertisement had
been issued from which it appeared that the sermon would come in as a
sort of interlude in a vast musical entertainment, in which an orchestra
of at least a hundred persons, supported by drums, trumpets, bassoon,
organ, serpents, violins without number, violoncellos, bass viols,
flutes, and hautboys would take part. Chalmers was most indignant. He
felt it an affront to himself, to be stuck up like a mountebank, as if
he had come to help in the entertainment of a pleasure-seeking audience.
But not less did he feel it a prostitution of his office, as if the
Ambassador of Heaven, dealing with men on their state before God and
their need of reconciliation, were to be mixed up with such a clatter.
He was on the verge of refusing to preach at all. But remembering his
promise, he compromised the matter by refusing to appear except at the
time when his sermon was delivered. 'I stopped in the minister's room
till it was all over. Went to the pulpit, prayed, preached, retired
during the time of the collection, and again prayed. Before I left my
own private room, they fell too again, with most tremendous fury, and
the likest thing to it which I recollect is a great military band on the
Castle Hill of Edinburgh.' In spite of all, the collection exceeded
L400. In telling the story, as he often did to his friends, he said
that they hardly let him alone even while he was preaching; 'the fellows
were tuning their trombones in my very ear.'
November 1825 found him again at his work in St. Andrews, with a better
prepared course, and a very numerous class. Notwithstanding the labours
of the recess, no symptom of exhaustion appeared; on the contrary, he
seemed to thirst for further labour, and whereas the subject of
political economy had been considered to fall to the professor of moral
philosophy, he intimated that in the following session he would make
political economy the subject of a separate course. A numerous class
was enrolled, but instead of teaching the subject by lectures, he
treated it by means of a text-book. The text-book was Dr. Adam Smith's
_Wealth of Nations_, on portions of which the students were examined,
the professor occasionally adding explanations or little dissertations
of his own, or referring to more modern books which gave the latest
aspects of the subject.
It should be added that Dr. Chalmers always opened his class with
prayer. This was an innovation in a class of philosophy. The prayers
were short and pithy, often bearing on the subject of the preceding
lecture, and the language was often felicitous, and even sublime. Of
the like quality were the prayers he offered when he became a professor
of divinity. Many of these will be found in the _Institutes of
Theology_.
But at St. Andrews he was very far from confining himself to academic
labours. He could not look round him without feeling that, small though
the town was, it was not less in need than crowded Glasgow of efforts to
dispel its spiritual darkness, and awaken young and old to the things of
eternity. The place had fallen from its high estate; it was no longer
like the St. Andrews of those days when, fragrant with martyr memories,
it formed one of the chief centres of evangelical influence in Scotland.
The first form of pastoral activity to which Dr. Chalmers betook himself
was that of a Sabbath-school teacher. As soon as he had leisure after
the first session, he marked out for himself a district of the town in
the neighbourhood of his house, visited the families, and invited the
children to attend a class of his own on the Sunday evenings. For that
class he made as careful, though not as elaborate, preparations as for
his students in the university. By and by it increased to rather
burdensome size.
Meanwhile, another class of young persons engaged his attention, and the
Sabbath school was handed over to others. It had been suggested to him
that great good would result from a students' class, from gathering
together, on Tuesday evenings, such students as desired to receive from
him religious instruction of the same kind as they had been accustomed
to receive in their fathers' houses before they came to college. The
first winter of this meeting, five students came for the purpose.
Chalmers instructed them and dealt with them, gave them books for
Sabbath reading, examining them as to their contents, and at the same
time taking a book of his own, _Scripture References_, as a kind of
doctrinal text-book of his expositions and examinations. Next year, the
number was about a dozen. In the third year, the number became so great
that his dining-room was crowded with students. One of them remarked
afterwards that they learned more of Christian ethics at these meetings
than from all his class-room lectures on moral philosophy.
In some instances, the fruit of these meetings was very remarkable.
According to the testimony of Dr. Duff, who was one of Chalmers's young
men, the students of St. Andrews, previous to his coming, were a godless
lot. To make a profession of piety was to incur universal derision. Nor
were the divinity students much better; some of them, indeed, were more
notorious than other students for impiety, immorality, and riotous
revellings. Dr. Chalmers was the instrument of a great revival. In
1823-24, some of the students formed themselves into a missionary
society, which held meetings next session in the room of a remarkable
man, John Urquhart, one of those saintly youths whose early death puts
an end to the boundless promise of their student careers. Dr. Chalmers
had already become president of a missionary society, embracing
different denominations. At the monthly meetings of this society, which
became so large that they had soon to be held in the Town Hall, he gave
addresses on missionary topics, not only communicating information, but
also pressing the motives and encouragements to missionary effort,
answering objections, and gathering from the reports on the state of the
heathen confirmations of Scripture, and evidences of the divine origin
of Christianity. A university missionary society had now become
possible, and its career began in 1825-26 under more favourable
conditions than could have been looked for. The blessing of God rested
on it, for it furnished some of the first and noblest missionaries that
the Church of Scotland sent into the foreign field. The first was the
Rev. Robert Nesbit, who spent many laborious and effective years at
Bombay. Before Dr. Chalmers left St. Andrews, another of his students,
Mr. Adams, had begun his missionary career. In 1829, Chalmers presided
at the ordination of Alexander Duff, now one of the brightest names in
the record of missions. The Rev. A. Mackay and the Rev. David Ewart
followed, and John Urquhart was preparing to go when illness and death
arrested his career. A more beautiful or promising springtime of
missionary activity could hardly be imagined. And the same course that
had thus been begun at St. Andrews was also being followed in Edinburgh.
On 27th December 1825, the Edinburgh University Missionary Association
was founded, chiefly through the influence of John Wilson, afterwards so
well known as Dr. Wilson of Bombay. Chalmers has sometimes been called
a man of one idea, and in some minds the notion got hold that all his
interest was in home missions, and that he looked with comparative
indifference on foreign. It would be more correct to say that he was a
man of all manner of ideas, but that he worked out only one idea at a
time. In that large heart there was room not only for the welfare of
Scotland, but of the whole world too. His identification of himself
with the missionary cause, at a time when many derided it, was an act of
high moral courage. So was another act, his taking sittings for his
family in the dissenting chapels, that they might be nourished with
evangelical food, not then to be obtained in the Established Church.
Occasionally he would attend these chapels himself, both on Sundays and
week-days; not disdaining the devotional services of a pious mechanic at
the prayer-meeting, and deriving far more help therefrom than from the
dreary ministrations either of the town church or that of the college.
In one respect Dr. Chalmers's course did not run smoothly at St.
Andrews. He got into loggerheads with his colleagues on the subject of
college finance. In dealing with the funds of the college, it had been
the practice of the Senatus to lay aside a certain amount for general
expenses, and to divide the balance as a supplemental salary among the
different professors. Chalmers was not clear that this was a legitimate
course, and for some years he refused to receive his share of the
supplemental fund, which accordingly accumulated until it amounted to
some L700. Reflecting as this refusal did, or was supposed to do, on
the honesty of his colleagues, it gave him more pain than any other
public duty he was ever called to perform. After he had left St.
Andrews, the university commissioners having looked into the matter,
recorded it as their judgment that there was no good reason why he
should not accept of the sum standing at his credit; and as Dr. Chalmers
had desired only that the matter should be settled by competent
authority, he accepted the money. But nothing could exceed his surprise
and indignation when he found, in the published report of the
commissioners in 1831, a statement that 'the principal and professors
appear to have made these appropriations without any authority.' In a
letter addressed to the commissioners, and published in 1832, after
quoting their judgment in his own case, he said he could not divine what
they really thought of these appropriations--whether they were honest or
fraudulent. 'If you think them wrong, how is it that to me you have
called the evil good? If right, how is it that to your Sovereign you
have called the good evil?'
During his five years' incumbency in St. Andrews, he issued two volumes
from the press. The first was the third and concluding volume of _The
Christian and Civic Economy of Large Towns_. Among the topics embraced
in this volume were the Poor-Laws and the Combination-Laws. The
particular aspect of the Poor-Laws with which he dealt, and which he
most thoroughly condemned, was the application of the poor-rates, as in
England, to supplement the wages of ill-paid labourers. Though kindly
meant, this arrangement, he held, was an invasion of the relation
between master and men so ruinous, and involved a bounty to the masters
so unjust, that no toleration ought to be found for it. This was also
the general opinion; and the practice was discontinued by law.
According to Dr. Chalmers's biographer, his exposure of the practice
formed a powerful contribution towards its removal.
In regard to the Combination-Laws, which imposed severe and stringent
penalties on any united movements of workmen for increasing their wages,
a bill for repealing them had been introduced and carried by Mr.
Huskisson, whose efforts to free industry from the fetters of Protection
were hailed by Dr. Chalmers with great delight. Unfortunately, the
carrying of this measure into law was accompanied by certain deplorable
excesses on the part of some classes of workmen, who did not understand
how to use their new-found liberty. Dr. Chalmers strongly upheld the
righteousness of the repeal of the old laws, mainly on the ground that
we ought not to manufacture crime out of acts (such as workmen's
combinations) which the natural conscience does not condemn. But with
equal firmness he denounced any interference with the freedom of labour,
especially when men on strike coerced and persecuted those that might be
willing to work. The experience of seventy years has not materially
changed the position. 'Strike, if you please,' is the voice of reason
and justice to workmen; 'but leave those who do not concur with you at
perfect freedom to do as _they_ please.'
The other publication of this period was a book on Literary and
Ecclesiastical Endowments. It was devoted chiefly to the case of the
Scottish universities. Among the reforms which he advocated, a foremost
place was given to the raising of the standard of scholarship for those
joining the university. Though apparently disregarded at the time, it
was seen, whenever serious attention began to be given to the state of
our universities, that this was indeed the most important change to
begin with. What Dr. Chalmers proposed was, that an entrance
examination should be instituted, and that a gymnasium, or, as we now
call it, a secondary school, should be attached to each of the
universities, for instruction that would qualify for the entrance
examination. Modern opinion has so far transcended the modest proposal
of Chalmers, that instead of a preparatory school in each university
seat, the demand is now for adequate secondary schools scattered over
all the land.
It was a very congenial thing for Chalmers to advocate in this way the
elevation and ample equipment of our universities. His old love of
science and general culture had never died in him, although he had
learned to give them a secondary place, and to feel profoundly that the
first duty and the chief interest of man concerned his relation to the
great God, without whom nothing could be great, nothing strong. But the
spirit of Chalmers was stirred within him as often as he thought of the
great leaders of science, and their splendid achievements in astronomy
and in other departments. The very name of Newton sent a thrill through
every fibre of his being, and roused the desire to follow in his steps,
as well as to see every youth around him inspired by his spirit, and by
all that was noble in his example. Speaking of the universities of
England, which were more successful than the Scottish in cultivating
particular branches, but gave less complete attention to learning as a
whole, he said, 'We cannot conclude this passing notice of the
universities of England without the mention of how much they are
ennobled by those great master spirits--those men of might and high
achievement--the Newtons, and the Miltons, and the Drydens, and the
Barrows, and the Addisons, and the Butlers, and the Clarkes, and the
Stillingfleets, and the Ushers, and the Foxes, and the Pitts and
Johnsons, who within their attic retreats received that first awakening
which afterwards expanded into the aspirations and triumphs of loftiest
genius. This is the true heraldry of colleges. Their family honour is
built on the prowess of sons, not the greatness of ancestors.'
It remains for us to take a glance at some of the more miscellaneous
engagements of Chalmers during this period, including his journeys, his
speeches in public, the new friendships he formed, his spiritual
progress, and his letters to his family and friends.
In the autumn of 1826, after his hard work in Glasgow, Dr. Chalmers
treated himself to the rare luxury of a ramble in the south of Scotland.
The character of the man was singularly shown in the objects that
attracted him as he proceeded from place to place. In the neighbourhood
of Kelso, he stopped his gig opposite Roxburgh Castle, and running up to
it, feasted his eyes, even in the midst of rain, on an old-remembered
scene--'one of the most glorious panoramas I ever beheld, where the
blended beauties of Teviot and Tweed were concentred upon the environs
of Kelso and the Palace of Fleurs, with the seats and plantations of
other grandees.' But it was places with an historical association that
charmed him most. The church of Anwoth, Samuel Rutherford's early home,
greatly delighted him. The church, which was like that of Kilmany, but
smaller, still remained, but a new one was in course of erection; the
manse had just been pulled down. Sir Walter Scott could not have more
emphatically denounced such Gothicism, and the soul of Chalmers
sympathised deeply with some of the masons that had refused to
perpetrate the barbaric act, and had been dismissed from their
occupation in consequence. To see Rutherford's 'witnesses,' he went up
among the hills and inspected the stones which he once called to witness
against some of his parishioners who were indulging in amusement on the
Sunday. Not less enthusiastic was he at Kirkmabreck, where Dr. Thomas
Brown, the son of the minister, was buried. At Dumfries he visited Mrs.
Burns, the widow of the poet, with whom he had a pleasant conversation,
and whom he was pleased to see so comfortable. Among the gentlemen whose
acquaintance he made was Mr. Cunninghame of Lainshaw, a well-known
writer on prophecy, and Mr. Buchan of Kelloe, in Berwickshire, whose
house was 'just delicious.' When the panorama of Berwickshire suddenly
burst on him, he was overwhelmed. Perhaps what strikes one most in his
account of this and other journeys is his readiness to be pleased, his
power of finding enjoyment in everything. There is not a single cynical
remark in all his narrative, not a flout, nor a grumble, nor a bitter
word; he is always happy.
In May 1827 he went to London to open the new church of Mr. Irving in
Regent Square. This took place on a Friday; the prayer which Mr. Irving
offered was forty minutes in length, and it was an hour and a half ere
Chalmers was allowed to begin. He preached again on the Sunday, the
crowd comprising Mr. Peel, Lord Bexley, Lord Farnham, Lord Mandeville,
Mr. Coleridge, and many other notables. At this time he made the
acquaintance of Mr. Coleridge, with whom he spent three hours at the
Gillmans' house in Highgate; but while he marvelled at the flow of
conversation, he said he could only catch occasional glimpses of what he
would be at. He had a pleasant talk in the House of Commons with Mr.
Peel, who showed a great interest in his views on pauperism, the college
commission, and likewise in his sermons, all of which he said he had
read. He had some intercourse with Macaulay, and heard Brougham; saw
also Sir Francis Burdett (father of Lady Burdett-Coutts), a conspicuous
radical politician of the day.
Among home friends, Chalmers remained as simple, unsophisticated, and
kindly as before. 'Of all men,' said Mrs. Grant of Laggan at this time,
'he is the most modest, and speaks with undisguised gentleness and
liberality of those who differ from him in opinion. Every word he says
has the stamp of genius; yet the calmness, ease, and simplicity of his
conversation is such, that to ordinary minds he might appear an ordinary
man.... He is always powerful, always gentle, and always seemed quite
unconscious of his own superiority.' About the same time, Mrs. Grant
received a visit from her friend, Sir Walter Scott, and it is
interesting to observe the resemblance she saw between the two men. 'His
good-nature, good-humour, and simplicity are truly charming. You never
once think of his superiority, because it is evident he does not think
of it himself. He, too, confirmed the maxim that true genius is ever
modest and careless.'
In the autumn of the same year he paid his first visit to Ireland. He
had been asked to preach, and crowds as usual thronged to hear him. He
was greatly interested in the Giant's Causeway and the surrounding
scenery, and seems to have relished the new aspect of character which
Ireland furnished. But the place which had the deepest interest for him
was Gracehill, a Moravian settlement, where his wife had been educated,
and in the cemetery of which was the tomb of her mother. To be on the
spot where his mother-in-law, whom he had never seen, departed this
life; to converse with the physician that had attended her in her last
hours; and to walk through the school-house where his wife had received
her education, thrilled his susceptible nature; it was with reluctance
that he tore himself from these 'bowers of sacredness.' We can hardly
conceive a warmer or more delicate tribute to his wife, or a clearer
evidence of his affection for her and her family.
We have already adverted to some of his appearances in the General
Assembly, but to these we must now add a remarkable pleading, in 1828,
in favour of the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. The royal
assent had just been given to a bill repealing these Acts, but so vital
did the matter appear to Dr. Chalmers, that he proposed that the
Assembly should present a humble Address to his Majesty, expressing its
satisfaction that it was no longer requisite to take the sacrament as a
qualification for civil office. In his speech he compared the old law,
viewed as a buttress to the Established Church, to those wooden props
which one sometimes sees leaning obliquely against the walls of a
house,--creating the impression that when a house needs such props, it
is one of the craziest in the street. Yet he was careful to affirm his
high regard for an established church in itself, apart from such
miserable buttresses. His motion was lost by 123 votes to 77, but in
spirit the Assembly agreed with him.
As he was making his speech, his eye met that of Edward Irving, who was
sitting opposite him, and who was wild on the opposite side. Irving was
then delivering lectures on prophecy in Edinburgh to enormous audiences.
Already he was manifesting symptoms of that disordered judgment which
ultimately carried him so far astray, and Chalmers was sorely troubled.
As to his dealings with his own family, the same warmth of heart
continued to show itself toward them which his earlier years had
manifested. When his sister Isobel, next younger to himself, was dying,
in the middle of his first session at St. Andrews (January 1824), he
charged himself with her case as if it were his chief interest, and for
a twelve-month wrote letter after letter to her, pressing on her with
equal tenderness and earnestness all that bore on her spiritual welfare.
He was greatly cheered to learn that she was full of peace and joy in
believing, and able to sustain with cheerful patience the sore pains
that accompanied her illness. Her life closed with the closing year,
and with her declaration that Jesus was fulfilling to her His latest
promise, for He was now coming to receive her to Himself.
Very beautiful, too, was his spirit to his mother. Now that he lived at
St. Andrews, he could see her often. In 1826 her last remaining
daughter was married, and she was left alone. Deaf and lame, she was
cut off, to a large extent, from intercourse with others. Yet her son
could write: 'What a season of delight and of ripening for heaven has my
mother's old age turned out to her, who, in the absence of all foreign
resources, enjoys a perpetual feast in the happy repose of her spirit on
that Saviour whom she trusts--that God whom she feels to be reconciled
to her!' The dear old woman wrote of herself to her eldest son, James,
in her seventy-seventh year: 'Since I last wrote to you I have had
several severe complaints. I am very frail and very infirm; but what a
blessing it is that my memory and the faculties of my mind are as active
as if I were twenty! I bless God that it is so. I feel a pleasant
contentment and peace of mind that the world cannot give nor take away.
I amuse myself with working and reading. God is very good to me, who
gives me a contented and happy frame of mind; and I trust my God will
never leave nor forsake me, that when death comes, He will also be with
me, and give me good hopes through Jesus Christ our Lord.'
It was her son's privilege to be much with her during her last illness.
'My mother's has been to me by far the most impressive deathbed I ever
attended. The predominant feature of it has been the deep and immovable
trust of her spirit upon the Saviour. This has been growing apace for
some years, and it shed a singular and beautiful light on the evening of
her days.'
It could not have been said of Dr. Chalmers that they made him the
keeper of the vineyards, but his own vineyard he had not kept. How like
the Apostle he was in being jealous over himself with a godly jealousy
will appear from such extracts from his journal as this: 'I live as if
in exile from God, in a dry and thirsty land where no water is. Erred in
levity with Mr. Duncan in our reading-room; more kind and hospitable to
Mr. Dwight than formerly on a similar occasion; marvelling little of God
when moving through His delicious air upon our ride, and in the midst of
His unnumbered beauties. Oh that I could associate with everything the
first great Cause of all things! Absolutely nothing of the serious or
sacred in me when sitting among eighteen immortals in the evening. What
an exclusion of religion from the world's companies! Give me wisdom and
principle, O God. Oh! let me redeem the time, and give myself to the
work of an entire and spiritual Christianity!'
Sometimes we find an entry in his journal: 'Fasted somewhat this
day,'--so eager was he to leave no means of spiritual quickening unused.
But still we find severe judgment against himself. 'Old things are not
wholly passed away: the love of literature _for itself_, and the love of
literary distinction, have not passed away. Let me love literature as
one of those creatures of God which is not to be refused, but received
with thanksgiving. Let me desire literary distinction, but let my
desire for it be altogether that I may add to my Christian usefulness,
and promote the glory of God; then, even without these, I would be a new
creature. The impression of my defects is not such as to overwhelm me,
but stimulate me.'
During his St. Andrews incumbency, Dr. Chalmers had been offered various
offices, notably that of professor of moral philosophy in the University
of London. To none of these offers did he accede; but when, on 31st
October 1827, the Magistrates and Town Council of Edinburgh unanimously
elected him to fill the chair of theology in the university there, he
gladly accepted the office, the more especially that it had been
arranged that he was not to enter on his new duties till November 1828.
It was a trial to him to part with the calm and quiet he had enjoyed at
St. Andrews, and again plunge into a vast and bustling community like
that from which he had escaped five years before, and which had left
little more than 'the dazzling recollection of a feverish and troubled
dream.' But theology was a higher department than moral philosophy, and
Edinburgh was a centre of wider influence than St. Andrews. His course
was clear; nevertheless, in his closing lectures, he assured his
students that nothing in what was before him was fitted to displace them
from his recollections; but, on the contrary, from his individual
acquaintance with them all, he would ever regard his connection with
them as a more tender relationship than he could hope to enjoy with the
students of Edinburgh.