NEW COLLEGE, EDINBURGH
1843-1847
Gifted and mighty men though many of the leaders of the Disruption were,
Chalmers towered high above them all. With the multitude his illustrious
name gave a dazzling _eclat_ to the movement; with the thoughtful the
fact that a man of his sagacity, patriotism, and caution, and strong
proclivity to an established church, should have thrown himself heart
and soul into the non-intrusion cause, created the conviction that it
must be supported by very weighty considerations. What but the strongest
sense of fatal injury to the church could have induced him, after
electrifying London with pleadings for a national establishment of
religion, to forsake his own, and become practically a voluntary? No
man felt his responsibility for the Disruption more deeply than
Chalmers; and no man laboured more assiduously in behalf of the Free.
Church, in the creation of which he had had such a share. To the
General Assembly of 1843 he gave in the Reports of the Sustentation and
Building Committees, both of which were very encouraging. The months of
August and September were spent in a tour to the east and north of
Scotland, on behalf of the Sustentation Fund. In October he attended an
extra meeting of the General Assembly at Glasgow, opening it with a
sermon from Nehemiah xi. 16. In November he had to enter on his duties
as Principal and Professor of Divinity in the Free Church Theological
Institution, now known as the 'New College.'
It was natural for him to be very much cheered by the numberless letters
and visits of congratulation that came to the Free Church from every
quarter. When even those who had as voluntaries been his most
inveterate opponents in his church endowment effort, came with their
warm and most brotherly salutations, a new hope of union sprang up that
rekindled hope for the highest welfare of Scotland.
Speaking to the General Assembly held at Glasgow in the autumn of 1843,
he said:--
'I confess to you that I was much interested by the arrival, by one post
after another, of those addresses and resolutions from various churches,
of whose very existence I was not aware till I received their letters.
And I think that every man, whose heart is in the right place, will be
delighted with such movements. They are movements quite in my own
favourite direction, because one and all of them are movements of
convergency; or, in other words, movements which point in the first
instance to union, and, as soon as possible and prudent, I trust their
landing-place will be incorporation. There is among them one very
pleasant address, signed by--I have not had time to count the
names,--but I believe some of the youngsters of my family tried a more
wholesale method of arriving at a probable estimate of the amount of
support thus given to the Free Church; instead of numbering, they
measured it, and found it about seventeen yards long.... I have felt
exceedingly delighted with these communications. I must say that I
consider it as infinitely more characteristic of the religion which we
profess--the religion of peace and charity--that instead of each
denomination sitting aloft and apart upon its own hill, and frowning
upon each other from their respective orbits, they should hold kindly
and mutual converse, and see each other eye to eye, while they will
discern, to their mutual astonishment, if not how thoroughly, at least
how substantially, they are at one. I just conclude with observing that
now is the time to rally about the common standard all that is pure and
vital in Protestantism; for now it is that we shall have to make head
against a new form and revival of Antichrist, whether in the form of
Popery--naked Popery, or Popery in disguise, even that Antichrist which
threatens to shake a most withering mildew over the whole of
Christendom.'
The same views were expressed with equal emphasis at a general meeting,
held about the same time, in commemora tion of the two hundredth
anniversary of the Westminster Assembly. And when the Evangelical
Alliance was projected, he wrote a pamphlet in its favour, expressing a
strong desire that it should be called the Protestant Alliance, and that
it should have for its double object the protection and promotion of the
cause of Protestantism; and, in his own familiar and favourite line, the
work of a great Home Mission.
Among the eminent strangers who visited Scotland about this time none
excited a livelier interest in Dr. Chalmers's mind than Dr. Merle
D'Aubigne, who came in 1845, when in the full flush of his fame as the
popular historian of the Reformation.
At the Disruption there was a vast amount of work to be done, for it
would have required more than seven hundred churches to accommodate all
the congregations that adhered to the Free Church. There were, besides,
many cases of peculiar difficulty, caused chiefly by the refusal of
proprietors to grant sites for churches and manses on their properties,
a refusal which on vast estates like those of the Duke of Sutherland or
the Duke of Buccleuch would have amounted to an absolute extinction of
the church. Dr. Chalmers, however, under the influence of his strong
desire for a sabbatic decennium, kept clear of the ordinary work of the
church, excepting the Sustentation Fund and his college lectures. As
for the college itself, it was mainly in the hands of Dr. Welsh, until
his lamented death in 1845, when Dr. Chalmers felt constrained to become
convener of the College Committee. Among other services, Dr. Welsh took
in hand to provide for a college building, which it was proposed to
erect from the contributions of twenty subscribers of L1000 each. This
was a serious undertaking at a time when the wealthier friends of the
church had been straining all their energies for the Building,
Sustentation, and Mission Funds. But the whole sum was speedily
contributed in the way proposed, and though in the end the price of the
site and the cost of the building amounted to more than double the sum
named at the beginning, the whole was ultimately provided. Such
liberality for college purposes was due in a great degree to the
profound regard in which Dr. Chalmers was held, and in a somewhat less
degree to his colleague Dr. Welsh.
It must be owned that Dr. Chalmers was not satisfied with the success of
the Sustentation Fund. It had been adopted not only unanimously but
enthusiastically by the whole church, and considering all that had to be
done for other purposes, it was marvellous that in the first year it
amounted to L68,700, enough to furnish fully L100 to six hundred
ministers. That, however, was but two-thirds of the amount which
Chalmers had named as the minimum payment to each minister from this
fund. And, besides, there were many additional ministers to be provided
for, needed by the new adhering congregations; and moreover,--and this
was never absent from his thoughts--there was to be considered the vast
home-mission work needed in order to realise his lifelong desire to
overtake the whole spiritual destitution of the country. It was the
inadequacy of the Sustentation Fund to realise this further object that
was the chief cause of his disappointment. Moreover, he found in the
machinery of his scheme a serious leak, which bade fair to ruin it.
Every congregation was to receive an equal dividend for its minister
from this fund, whatever might be the amount of its own contributions.
In order that this provision might work satisfactorily, it was necessary
that congregations should make an equal effort for the fund. But it was
soon found that many congregations were steeped in selfishness, and,
while drawing their equal dividend, their contributions were but a
fraction of what they should have been. Chalmers had calculated on a
brotherly spirit and a brotherly conscience, which he now found were
often wanting. He became alarmed for the future, and proposed a
modification of the original arrangement, to the effect that no
congregation should receive from the fund more than its own contribution
and a half more. But it was too late. The fund had been constituted on
the footing of an equal dividend, and there was a strong opposition to
the change. Chalmers remonstrated by word of mouth and by pamphlets on
the 'Economics of the Free Church.' All that the Assembly would allow
was that the new plan should be tried with new congregations. But as
the new congregations were generally comparatively poor, the result was
something like starvation to their ministers; and, after a short trial,
the plan was given up. But no one could deny the serious nature of the
evil that Chalmers had pointed out, and for many a long year there were
perplexed discussions as to the remedy. Even now, though the leak has
been abundantly dealt with, it has not been quite overcome. In his
remonstrances, Chalmers showed more vehemence than was perhaps
reasonable, considering that it was the defect of his own original
scheme that caused the difficulty. But his vehemence was due to the
conviction that came home so strongly to him, that the Sustentation Fund
could not become the instrument of carrying out his dearly-cherished
project,--of recovering the whole waste-places of Scotland, and making
them parts of the vineyard of the Lord. The thought saddened him, and
it led him to speak more disparagingly of what the Free Church had
accomplished, and what the Sustentation Fund had accomplished, than was
altogether deserved.
After experiencing three disappointments--from the Whigs, and the
Tories, and the Free Church, it might have been supposed that, all eager
as he was for rest and quiet, he would now let the matter alone. But
no. There remained one other step. By an _experimentum crucis_, by a
demonstration of what, under the divine blessing, could be done by his
scheme in as unfavourable a district as could be found, he might yet
vindicate it in the eyes of all men; he might leave behind him a
monument which would be a perpetual rebuke of the languor and
listlessness of the church; a perpetual encouragement to similar
undertakings, and a perpetual testimony to the maxim of John Eliot, the
apostle of the North American Indians, which he used often to quote,
that 'prayer and pains can do everything.'
This was the origin of the West Port experiment. Writing on 26th July
1844, just fourteen months after the Disruption, to his friend Mr.
Lennox of New York, the munificent founder of the Lennox Library and the
Lennox Hospital, New York, between whom and Dr. Chalmers there had
sprung up a very cordial friendship, he said: 'I have determined to
assume a poor district of two thousand people, and superintend it
myself, though it be a work greatly too much for my declining strength
and means. Yet such do I hold to be the efficiency of the method with
the divine blessing, that perhaps, as the concluding act of my public
life, I shall make the effort to exemplify what as yet I have only
expounded.'
To prepare the way and interest the public in his scheme, he delivered
four lectures, in which the methods and advantages of territorial
schools and churches were set forth with his usual force. Free Church
feeling was running very hieh at the time, and Dr. Chalmers was at great
pains to show that his undertaking was dictated solely by a regard to
the good of the people. 'Who cares,' he asked, 'about the Free Church,
compared with the Christian good of Scotland? Who cares about any
church but as an instrument of Christian good? For be assured that the
moral and religious well-being of the population is of infinitely higher
importance than the advancement of any sect.'
The district selected was of the worst description--a fourth part of the
whole population being paupers, and another fourth street beggars,
thieves, and prostitutes. The population amounted to upwards of 400
families, of whom 300 had no connection with any church. Of 411
children of school age, 290 were growing up without any education. The
plan of Dr. Chalmers was to divide the whole territory into twenty
districts, containing each about twenty families. To each district a
visitor was appointed, whose duty was to visit each family once a week,
under directions printed by Dr. Chalmers to show the specific object of
the visitation. A school was provided, and the visitors were
instructed, in the first instance, to show an active interest in the
young, and exhort the parents to send their children to the school. A
small fee was exacted, on the principle that what was paid for would be
more valued, and that a more regular attendance would be secured.[5] The
visitors were instructed to meet with Dr. Chalmers every Saturday
evening, the first meeting taking place on 27th July 1844. On the 6th
November, Dr. Chalmers held his first meeting with the people, telling
them all he would do for them, and all that they were expected to do for
themselves. On 11th November, when the school was opened, there were 64
scholars; in the course of the year there were 250. On the 22nd
December, public worship was commenced by Dr. Chalmers in a tan-loft.
The attendance was not encouraging after all the visiting that had been
going on--only about a dozen adults, and these mostly old women. In
April 1845, the services of the Rev. W. Tasker were secured as
missionary-minister, and before the end of the year the nucleus of a
fair congregation had been formed. A library, a savings-bank, a
washing-house, and a female industrial school were added to the
parochial equipments. Dr. Chalmers preached and worshipped often in the
loft, met with the visitors, and addressed the people as new features
were added to the scheme. 'When he was a hearer merely,' says Mr.
Dodds, 'one would see him near the pulpit, in a crowd of deaf old women,
who were meanly clothed, but were following the services with unflagging
attention and interest. His eye was upon every one of them, to
anticipate their wishes and difficulties. He would help one old woman
to find out the text; he would take hold of the psalm-book of another,
hand to hand, and join her in the song of praise. Any one looking at him
could see that he was in a state of supreme enjoyment.' And most
earnestly did he pray for a blessing on the work, and that it might be
the forerunner of many such undertakings.
[5] He used to speak with great delight of a poor woman, who told him
that by going out at seven in the morning she earned enough, by
raking among the ashes, to pay for the schooling of her eldest
daughter, but wished the second also to attend. His first impulse
was to offer to pay for her, but that, he feared, would hurt her
independence; so he said: 'What would you say to rise at six in
the morning and earn enough to pay for her too?' On the following
Saturday she came to tell him she had done it. 'I could have
stood before her,' he said, 'with cap in hand, for in truth she
was above myself.'
'We would give Thee no rest, O God, until Thou hast opened the window of
heaven and caused righteousness to flow down that street like a mighty
river.' 'Let such a memorial of Christian philanthropy be set up in
that place as to be a praise and an example both in the city of our
habitation and in other cities of the land.' 'Reveal to me, O God, the
right tactics, the right way and method of proceeding in the management
of the affairs of the West Port. Oh that I were enabled to pull down
the strongholds of sin and of Satan which are there!' 'O my God, give
me the power of ordering matters aright in the West Port.... And more
especially, O God, let me understand Thy will in regard to the right
place and performances of a female agency.' 'Draw close the affections
and affinity between Mr. Tasker and the families of the West Port....
Do Thou guide and encourage him, O Lord.... Oh may he not only be
himself saved, but may he be the instrument of salvation to many; and
may both he and I be carried in safety, and at length with triumph, to
that prosperous termination for which we are jointly labouring!'
We have no space to dwell further on the history of the West Port. The
sweep of the experiment was complete. On 19th February 1847 a new church
was opened; and on the 25th April, one month before his death, Dr.
Chalmers administered the Lord's Supper to the congregation. On that
occasion he said to Mr. Tasker, 'I have got now the desire of my heart;
God has indeed answered my prayer, and I could now lay down my head in
peace and die.' And he wrote to Mr. Lennox, 'I wish to communicate what
to me is the most joyful event of my life. I have been intent for
thirty years on the completion of a territorial experiment, and I have
now to bless God for the consummation of it.'
It may be well to add that under Mr. Tasker and his successors the cause
has prospered greatly. After being enlarged twice, the original church
still proved too small, and a new and spacious building was erected a
little way off. The congregation now numbers upwards of 1300
communicants. Of course it is not wholly territorial; people that have
become attached to a church cannot be driven out of it when they leave
the neighbourhood; but the old building is still retained as a mission
church, and the territorial work continues. In the Free Church in
Edinburgh the experiment was repeated many times, new territorial
churches in poor and needy districts having been erected at Holyrood,
Pleasance, Back of Canongate (Moray), Cowgate, Cowgate Head, and
Fountainbridge. In Glasgow there have been many more, and several in
the other large towns of Scotland. The Established Church has striven
with great success to have its extension churches endowed, thereby
carrying into effect the original idea of Chalmers. And yet, in spite
of all this, the aim of Chalmers is as far from being realised as ever.
With the increasing population, the number of persons, in our large
towns especially, who have no connection with any church is larger than
in Chalmers's time. And, alas! the wave of scepticism and of
secularism that is passing over us intensifies the evil and magnifies
the difficulty.
In connection with his public labours, it only remains for us to advert
to his work as professor of theology during the last few years of his
life. It had long been his desire to reduce his lectures to a form that
would convey the fruits of his maturest reflections, both on the
credentials and contents of the Christian revelation. When he began his
_Horae Biblicae Quotidianae_ and _Sabbaticae_, he began at the same time
to condense and reconstruct his lectures; the two works advanced _pari
passu_; the devout study of the Scriptures went hand in hand with the
endeavour, in the spirit of the Baconian philosophy, to present the
substance of their contents. Hence arose his _Institutes of
Theology_--a work which has received far too little attention since
German theology began to supersede our own, but which may one day, in
some future age, be valued as it should.
But the great merit of Chalmers as a professor lay in the enthusiasm
with which he inspired his students. It would have been hard indeed for
any conscientious youth to be under him and not feel his soul quickened,
at least occasionally, to a sublime ardour, and fired with a new
ambition. So wonderful was his influence, that at the Disruption
nine-tenths of those who passed through his classes stood by his side.
The present writer, though he spent but one session under him before the
Disruption, can bear testimony, not only to the intellectual and
spiritual impulse he gave, but to the subtle sympathy which drew his
students to share his church views, though he never alluded to them in
the class, and to the enthusiasm with which they listened to him in the
General Assembly. He well knew that in the Free Church the mass of the
ministers would be but poorly paid, and that there was all the greater
reason why they should be well equipped by superior scholarship, and
especially by superior piety, for their office. And in this he was
highly successful. After three sessions in the Free Church College, he
could testify that the students of his last session stood the highest of
any he had known, not only in general proficiency and scholarship, but
also in their sense of divine things, and devotedness in heart and
spirit to the great objects of the Christian ministry. In his later
years, it was his practice to invite his students to private interviews
for spiritual conversation and prayer.
On 4th June 1846, he laid the foundation-stone of the Free Church
College. It had been considered a great stroke of policy that the most
commanding site in the city had been secured for the building. The
writer of this sketch, who was present on the occasion, remembers his
grand appearance after the ceremony, when his noble head appeared above
a confused pile of stones and timbers; and, producing a scrap of paper
covered with shorthand hieroglyphics, he apologised, with a broad smile,
for taking to 'the paper,' seeing it was but a scrap, whereas if he were
to speak extempore, his remarks might become an 'interminable
rigmarole.' Not a little of the short speech was addressed to the
workmen engaged in the building. That dear object of his life, to raise
the working population to a higher level of life in the best sense of
the word, came back on him in all its strength. Within the walls to be
erected, there would be, he said, no false theories of equality taught
or countenanced; but there was one equality between man and man that
would be strenuously enforced,--the essential equality of human souls;
it would be taught that, in the high count and reckoning of eternity,
the soul of the poorest of nature's children, the raggedest boy that ran
along the pavement, was of like estimation in the eye of Heaven with the
greatest and noblest of the land. The young men in that college would
ever be taught that, though their education might fit them for the
company of princes and peers, it would be their peculiar glory to be
visitants of the poor man's humble cottage, and to pray by the poor
man's dying bed. 'Heaven grant that the platform of humble life may be
raised immeasurably higher than at present, and through the whole extent
of it--that the mighty host who swarm upon its surface, brought under
the elevating power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and so rescued from
grovelling ignorance and loathsome dissipation, may rise to a full
equality with ourselves in all that is characteristic of humanity, and
take their place, along with us, side by side, on the footing of kindred
and companionable men.' He then made a graceful allusion to the young
queen, who had mercifully escaped one of those horrible attempts on her
life that occurred in the earlier part of her reign; prayed that she
might long continue to adorn her exalted position, and concluded by
calling for three cheers on her behalf. Thus the college of the Free
Church was founded on a cordial recognition of both ends of the social
scale: with benevolent wishes for the working multitude on the one hand,
and a cordial and loyal tribute to the Sovereign on the other.
The last of the public services rendered by Dr. Chalmers to the Free
Church consisted of a paper on the education question, and of his
evidence before the Committee of the House of Commons on the refusal of
sites. It was about the time when the question of national education
was coming full into the arena of discussion; and, at the request of Mr.
Fox Maule, afterwards Earl of Dalhousie, Chalmers, who had given much
attention to the subject, recorded his views in a short paper. The
difficulty was about the introduction of religion. Dr. Chalmers's view
was substantially that which was subsequently acted upon: he advised
that there should be no legislative enactment on the subject of
religion, but that the regulation of this should be left to the
governing bodies of the several schools. Not that religion was
unimportant, but the very reverse; but because the Christian church was
so divided that it could be far better seen to by the local managers.
To this he added a conscience clause; the result being substantially the
system which prevails in Scotland at the present day. He took occasion
to add, 'We despair of any good being done in the way of Christianising
our population but through the medium of a government themselves
Christian, and endowing the true religion, which I hold to be their
imperative duty, not because it is the religion of the many, but because
it is true.'
It was in the last month of his life that he set out for London, to meet
the Site Committee. On the 9th May 1847 he preached in Marylebone
Presbyterian Church, 'with more comfort than I ever did in London.'
After replying to the questions put by the committee through Mr. Maule,
he encountered an onslaught from Sir James Graham, who came armed with a
bundle of papers containing speeches, etc., of Chalmers, by means of
which he thought to entangle him. After his long examination before Sir
James appeared, Chalmers was somewhat exhausted, but he roused himself,
and met him in the spirit of a practised warrior. The only point of
importance raised by Sir James arose out of the London lectures, in
which he had spoken very favourably of the Church of England. 'I told
him that I did not advocate the Church of England; that I felt more
hopeful of it then than now, when like to be overrun by Puseyism; that
even then I denounced its figment of an Apostolical succession, and,
without directly attacking its Erastianism, spoke of our own
independence, and in terms which provoked the jealousy of English
churchmen,' etc. etc. But a great part of the examination concerned
the voting of women at the election of office-bearers and the like; a
paltry question, as Dr. Chalmers called it, having no sort of reasonable
connection with the refusal of sites. 'We concluded,' Dr. Chalmers
wrote to his wife, 'in a state of great exhaustion, yet with an erect
demeanour and visage unabashed.'
We conclude with a glimpse of his more private life in the few years
preceding his death. Unwearied as he ever was in his endeavour to
cultivate the affections of his children, and impress them with the most
serious responsibilities of life, his interest in them seems only to
have deepened as they grew up. He began a series of monthly letters to
be addressed to each in succession, and carried it on for a considerable
time. Two of his six daughters were married, but they were not excluded
from the privilege of his fatherly correspondence. And by and by, a
grandson, Thomas Chalmers Hanna, was old enough to receive letters
fitted to interest him, and draw his affections to so loving a
grandfather. It is strange, indeed, that any biographer of Chalmers
should have represented him (as Mrs. Oliphant has done) as not showing
social affection. 'My ever dear Anne,' 'My dearest Eliza,' 'My dearest
Grace,' were his ordinary salutations, and the spirit of the letters
corresponded to the address. Very touching is his letter to his eldest
daughter on the death of a beloved infant. As for his grandson, he just
revels in affection. 'Tell Tommy how much I love him, and pray for his
being good.' On occasion of his last visit to London, he visited the
widow of his brother James, and prayed with her; a likeness of his
brother was shown him, and impressed him so much that it haunted him for
days. This was the brother that had held himself so much aloof both
from him and all the family.
In his last visit to his native Anstruther and its neighbourhood, in
1845, his unchanged and unchangeable affection for the scenes and
friends of his youth showed a marvellous freshness and tenacity. Many
are the stories of his pleasure in recalling memorials of the past. He
hunted up an old schoolfellow, a tailor, and told him that he had been
the first to acquaint him with the form of the earth. He congratulated
another schoolfellow, who, like himself, had suffered from smallpox,
that while other people's faces were 'aye getting the waur, theirs were
always getting the better o' the wear!' He sought out the place where
Lizzie Green's water-bucket used to stand, where he and his heated
playfellows had often been allowed very kindly to slake their thirst.
But most pathetic was his visit to the house of Barnsmuir. When he was
some twelve or fourteen years old, the eldest daughter of that house had
been in the habit of riding into Anstruther on a little pony, and
Chalmers had conceived a deep and tender attachment to her, like that of
Lord Byron for his Mary Duff. The young lady was married while he was
at college, and she had died many years before this visit. At his
special request her youngest sister met him at Barnsmuir. In the house,
the remembrance of that early love came upon him with singular power; he
asked respectfully about her life and death, and learned with deep
emotion that she had died in the full Christian hope, and that some of
his letters to her sister had soothed and comforted her. He then asked
if there were any portrait of her, and being shown a profile, gazed on
it with great earnestness, fixed his own card on the back of it, and,
gazing on it again, gave expression to his strong affection, and burst
into a flood of tears. It was a touching proof, as his biographer has
said, that he was as much distinguished for the tenderness and tenacity
of his attachments as for the brilliance of his gifts.
Dr. Chalmers was ever very simple, and yet in some respects singular, in
his habits of life. Abstemious he was to a degree; ever watchful lest
he should at any time be in a condition of body that would interfere
with the activity of his intellectual and spiritual nature; at times, at
least, practising total abstinence, and always great moderation in both
food and drink. It was his usual practice to spend the early part of
the day in composition and study; he so carefully excogitated his
subjects that he was ever ready to use his pen, never obliged to loiter
in order to form his plan or shape his thought, but able to write
rapidly as soon as the pen was in his hand, and seldom or never
correcting. His handwriting was anything but elegant, yet very
characteristic; the upright letters, the firmness of each stroke, and
the continuity of the whole indicating decision, force, and flow. So
exact was his view, that he could calculate for weeks and months
beforehand the rate of his progress and the day when each piece of
writing would be finished. His remarkable calculating or counting
faculty was brought into operation in what we should call fantastic
ways. In stropping his razor, he would begin with two strokes, next day
three, and so on till he reached a maximum number; then he would reverse
the process and gradually diminish till he came back to two. In walking
he put his staff to the ground regularly at each fourth step; counting,
if he chose, the number of his steps, and able to keep count even if he
should meet a friend and walk with him in animated conversation. When
he lived in Inverleith Row he delighted to find new routes to the
university, and ascertain and record their several lengths. One day, as
he told a favourite student, he had been trying to find a near road
between Comely Bank and Inverleith Row, but got entangled, as he put it
in his original way, 'in the accessories of a farmhouse, where I was set
upon by a mastiff, and so obliged to turn back.' We have noted his
delight in ascending cathedral towers, and his invariable habit of
counting the steps. At any famous stream he would lap the water, thus
making the connection more intimate between the stream and himself. His
love of order was remarkable, though one might not have supposed it from
his general manner. It was through the power of orderliness that he was
able to achieve all he did within the compass of his life. By varying
his employments,--now writing, now visiting or attending meetings, now
travelling, now preaching or lecturing, now entertaining friends, now
reading and pondering, he kept himself comparatively fresh, and seemed
at all times ready for new work. '_Nulla dies sine linea_' might have
been his motto, had it not been that every day had half a dozen linea in
place of one.
His reading, after he became a professor, was considerable, partly in
theological books, partly in books of practical religion, and to a small
extent in general literature. So little direct sign of anything
Shakespearean is there in his writings that it rather surprises us to
find him recording towards the end of his life that he had completed an
entire perusal of the great dramatist, as well as of Milton and Gibbon.
He considered Shakespeare 'an intellectual miracle, the greatest man
that ever lived.' His favourite piece was _Midsummer Night's Dream_,
showing, as Dr. Peter Bayne has remarked, 'that after all the struggles
and worries of his life, he still walked in the aerial gaiety, the
many-tinted, summerlike beauty, the genial though keen sagacity of that
poem. It is a very remarkable circumstance, telling of a gentleness of
nature, a kind, gleesome humour, an exuberant, unstrained force and
freshness of intellect, rarely seen among theologians.'
In the prosecution of his incessant labours, he was no doubt
considerably helped by his sense of humour. He knew well the relaxation
and the refreshment derived from a good laugh. Many a humorous story he
used to tell. One of his favourite stories referred to a boor who was
getting married, but was such a dolt that he could not give an answer to
the questions of the minister. One of the man's neighbours who was
present, chagrined at such want of manners, and desiring to give the
fellow a needed lesson in etiquette, gave him a slap on the back, and
said, 'Ye brute, can you no' boo to the minister?' And it mattered not
if the story told against himself. When the astronomical discourses
were delivered, Dr. Chalmers came on an honest woman who had been
hearing one of them, and was curious to know what she could make of it.
'Weel, sir,' said the woman, 'I canna say that I understood ye
a'thegether, but, O sir, there was something unco suitable and
satisfyin' in your psalms!'
During his visit to London in connection with the Site Committee in May
1847, he had greatly enjoyed his intercourse with many friends--among
them Isaac Taylor, James Hamilton, Baptist Noel, Mr. Morell, and Thomas
Carlyle. He described Carlyle as 'a strong-featured man, and of strong
sense. We were most cordial and coalescing, and he very complimentary
and pleasant; but his talk was not at all Carlylish; much rather the
plain and ordinary conversation of good, ordinary common-sense, with a
deal of hearty laughing on both sides.' Chalmers greatly lamented the
alienation which he saw between the churches and the body of literary
and scientific men. He enlarged on 'localism' and the West Port;
nothing was too hard for 'localism.' Carlyle remarked afterwards to a
friend, 'What a wonderful old man Chalmers is! or, rather, he has all
the buoyancy of youth. When so many of us are wringing our hands in
hopeless despair over the vileness and wretchedness of the large towns,
there goes the old man, shovel in hand, down into the dirtiest puddles
of the West Port of Edinburgh, cleans them out, and fills the sewers
with living waters. It is a beautiful sight.'
After a flying visit to Brighton, where he preached for one of his
former students, he proceeded to Gloucestershire, and spent a happy time
with his ever dear sister Jane. On Sunday he preached his last sermon
in the Independent chapel of the Rev. Mr. Dove, from the text Isaiah
xxvii. 4, 5. A brief visit was paid at Darlington at the house of Mr.
and Mrs. Backhouse, 'a most delicious abode.' He was profoundly
interested in Mrs. Backhouse's account of the heavenly state of mind of
her father for some time before his death; while Mrs. Backhouse was
herself deeply struck with the very same spirit in him. During this
visit the whole of his journal letters had been addressed to his wife;
on Thursday (the 27th) he wrote to her, 'This is my last sheet.
To-morrow evening I expect to see you by the favour of Him whose right
hand preserves us continually, and for whose grace on us all I ever
pray.--I ever am, my dearest Grace, yours most affectionately, Thomas
Chalmers.'
He arrived at his house in Morningside on the Friday evening (2 8th
May), apparently in his usual health and strength. On the following
morning, at breakfast, his conversation was as lively and vigorous as
ever. The forenoon of the Saturday was occupied in preparing the
College Report, which he was to give in on Monday to the General
Assembly. On the Sabbath morning he conversed freely with the Rev. Mr.
Gemmel, who was staying at his house; afterwards with Dr. Cunningham;
then attended afternoon service in Morningside Free Church, and on his
way home called on Mrs. Coutts, an old Fifeshire friend, of high
Christian character. Part of the evening was spent in writing to his
sister, Mrs. Morton, and in conversation with Mr. Gemmel. His family
never saw him more genial and happy. After worship, he bade his family
remember that they must be early to-morrow; then he waved his hand and
said, 'A general good-night.'
On the following morning he was found dead in bed. It seemed likely,
from the state of the body, that his spirit had departed soon after he
lay down. There was not the slightest trace of struggle, either on the
face or in the attitude of the body. Never did death give a lighter
touch.
In a funeral sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Lindsay Alexander, the mode
of his departure was beautifully idealised. He recalled a passage in
one of Dr. Chalmers's sermons, in which he fancies a man 'standing on
the margin of this green world,' and feeling himself very closely bound
to 'the region of sense, and of life, and of society'; but suddenly
arrested by seeing some happy island of the blest floating past, 'in the
light of its surpassing glories, and its sounds of sweeter melody, and a
purer beauty resting on every field': discerning also in its inhabitants
'a peace, and a piety, and a benevolence that put a moral gladness into
every bosom, and united the whole society in rejoicing sympathy with
each other, and with the beneficent Father of them all'; observing,
moreover, signals of welcome for himself, and an open pathway of
communication to the island; insomuch that he is captivated by the
sight; earth becomes a wilderness, and 'the land of invitation' attracts
him with irresistible power.
'With this grand passage in my mind,' said Dr. Lindsay Alexander,' I
could not but fancy him who uttered it, as realising at the moment of
his departure some of the features of the case here supposed. I
pictured to myself how, when the premonitory touch of the Destroyer
broke his slumbers, he might imagine for a moment that he had been
summoned to his appointed work, and how, casting his eye upon the
materials he had prepared, he might begin to turn, with no reluctant
emotion, his thoughts upon the duties with which he was charged; but in
an instant another scene burst upon his view; a brighter radiance than
that of the morning sun fell upon his brow; sweeter voices than those of
wife or child broke upon his ear; a grander career of service than any
earth could furnish stretched before him; the hand of One more glorious
far than any child of man hung out to him the signals of welcome; and,
as he gazed, he acknowledged the superior claims of that brighter world,
and laid himself meekly down, and so his spirit passed rejoicingly away,
leaving his earthly tabernacle with a smile upon the lips, and not one
shade of suffering on the brow.'
On that Monday morning, the General Assembly met to receive his College
Report. When the sad news came, the shock was so overwhelming that it
would have been impossible to look at business, even if respect for his
memory had not demanded an adjournment. As men recovered somewhat from
the first shock, the sense of bereavement, of impoverishment, of
widowhood, grew the greater. There were many men of extraordinary gifts
in that Assembly, but who was there to be named with him?
An unprecedented concourse of mourners, much greater than had ever been
seen at an Edinburgh funeral, followed his body to the grave. And from
every pulpit, and from other quarters innumerable, the most respectful
and cordial tributes were paid to his memory. It was felt that since
the days of Knox no such man had been known in the Scottish church. His
greatness was shown alike by what he was and what he had done. He
seemed to combine the orator and the statesman, the ecclesiastic and the
patriot, the philosopher and the poet, the scientist and the saint. No
man had ever been so run after as a pulpit orator. No man of his day
had ever conceived so great undertakings or done so much to realise
them. His two hundred churches astonished every one; his Sustentation
Fund astonished still more. With theology in the forefront, his horizon
included philosophy, physical science, social science, political
economy, and literature; and for each and all of these he found a place
and a use in the Kingdom of God. And with all his greatness he was
simple as a child. Like his Master, 'he made himself of no
reputation'--never sought great things for himself. The world, and even
the church, hardly knew how near he lived to God--how much he had of the
saint. He was known to be very affable and affectionate, but the depth
and tenderness of his affection, especially for his own family, were
hardly suspected. When it was announced that, with all his gifts and
graces, he had passed from among his brethren, it seemed as if the
brightest star in the firmament had ceased to shine.
It is an interesting question--if Chalmers had been alive at the present
day, what would he have thought of the position of the different
branches of the Scottish church, and what counsel would he have given to
them on the subject of union?
To answer these questions we must bear two things in mind: first, that
he held the recent treatment of the church by the civil courts, and
virtually by the state itself, to be destructive of her liberty and her
life, insomuch that it had become an absolute necessity to abandon
connection with the state; but, second, that he held the state bound to
contribute to the support of the church, and the Free Church bound to
return to her old connection, provided the liberty should be restored
and practically secured of which she had been unrighteously deprived.
Would he, then, have held that liberty to be now restored, and the way
to an honourable, safe, and beneficial alliance reopened? We doubt it.
He would certainly have seen that, in point of fact, the Established
Church now enjoys a degree of liberty that enables her to discharge the
ordinary functions of a Christian church without obstruction, and in
particular to continue with great success that very enterprise of church
extension for which he thought that she would be able to do nothing.
But he could not have failed to see that this liberty was an indirect
fruit of the Disruption, and that it was quietly conceded to the
Established Church in order that she might stand practically on the same
platform of liberty with the nonconformist churches, and especially her
great rival the Free Church. He would have found no concession of
principle, no acknowledgment by the state or by the civil courts of an
essential difference between a Christian church and a civil corporation,
and no acknowledgment that the church, as the creation of Christ,
enjoyed privileges from Him independent of any state. He would have
found no repudiation of the dictum of the then Lord President that the
Established Church had no jurisdiction whatever in the country except
what had been conferred by the state; and he would have found no
security that if a new collision should occur between church and state,
between the worldly and the spiritual power, the state would repudiate
her old principles and policy.
Further, the contention of Chalmers in his London lectures and in his
latest deliverance (see p. 148) always was, that the state ought to
support religion, not merely because people wished it, but because the
religion was true. Would he, then, have found in the members of the
present Parliament any such value for revealed truth, as such, as would
have given him confidence in them as its guardians? A Parliament that
numbered Agnostics, Jews, Roman Catholics, Unitarians, and what not
among its members--how could such a body be a nursing-father or a
nursing-mother to the Christian church? Such a Parliament could not
safely be intrusted with its guardianship. It was a very different
condition of things when the Scottish church allied itself to the
Scottish Parliament, all or nearly all being members of the church. Nor
could he have found any cause for believing that at any future time,
within reasonable distance, the nursing of the church could be safely
committed to parliamentary hands.
But what then? There were three great Presbyterian churches in
Scotland, with much of their resources wasted through division, but
capable, by reasonable arrangements, of so combining their forces that
his grand object--the bringing of all Scotland under the influence of
Christian teaching--might at the least be greatly advanced. We can
hardly conceive of any other advice that Chalmers would have given than
that the vinculum of state-connection should be severed, and all the
three churches should unite, and rouse themselves for one great,
sustained, imperial effort to turn the country into the garden of the
Lord. But what of the endowments? It is just as difficult for us to
conceive that he would have been in favour of alienating them to secular
purposes. No, he would have said, that is not necessary, and should not
be; keep them for their original purpose, and place them under some
public management, so that every congregation of the united body may
have a share of them, if it please. This was certainly his feeling in a
somewhat parallel case. In 1833, when the Irish Church Reform Bill was
under discussion, Chalmers wrote to his sister, Mrs. Morton, 'I am
relieved by the bill, the only flaw in it (although that may be one of
deadly mischief) being the secularisation of the sum which they expect
from the sale of church lands.'[6] We can readily conceive how the
great soul of Chalmers would have expanded once more, and his face
beamed as the hope arose anew, that even yet his beloved country might
realise his magnificent ideal, and, by God's blessing on the labours of
a united church, its waste and desolate places might yet blossom as the
rose.
[6] _Correspondence of Dr. Chalmers_, p. 216.
No doubt, Chalmers died a disappointed man, so far as his great scheme
for the good of his country was concerned. He failed, and yet he did not
fail.
'If he strained too wide,
It was not to take honour, but give help;
The gesture was heroic. If his hand
Accomplished nothing--(well, it is not proved)
That empty hand thrown impotently out
Were sooner caught, I think, by One in heaven
Than many a hand that reaped a harvest in,
And keeps the scythe glow on it.'
We love the man for his noble aims and heroic efforts; and our love and
admiration are only touched with a tenderer feeling, in that, when he
failed, he did not abate one jot of heart or hope for his church and
country, but left behind him his West Port experiment as a monument of
what was possible, and an encouragement to all future generations to
continue to cherish what had proved for him--a hope unfulfilled.