nothing; my brain was in a whirl of mad, con- river, my heart softened, and I burst into a flicting thought. Every passion was working within me, and rage, jealousy, love and revenge were alternately swaying and controlling me. Then, however, as I looked down for the last time on the village and the cottage beside the

Though he threw back the fetters and headed the and melancholy anticipations which often give dark

A HIGH CHURCH REVIEW ON DR. CHALMERS. | style, not unlike that of the subject of his memoirs, though inclined, occasionally, to march on stilts, is [Glad of every opportunity of being in company with clear and copious; his observance of dates, that Dr. Chalmers, we copy the leading paper of the Chris- great merit in a memoir-writer, is accurate and pretian Remembrancer, a Quarterly Review. Our Presby-cise; nor, if we make due allowance for the unterian readers will not like some parts of this article, bounded love and admiration inspired by Chalmers but will be willing that, like Gen. Jackson's first cab- within his own circle, and for the natural tendency inet, it shall "come in as a unit."] of our northern neighbors to mutual panegyric, shall we pronounce it ungracefully eulogistic. While we cannot altogether suppress a smile at the comparison thus forced on us between the biographer of the Scotch preacher and the great historian of Agricola, we are quite willing to allow him the full benefit of the sentence of Tacitus which adorns

Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Thomas Chalmers, D.D. LL.D. By his Son-in-law, the REV. WILLIAM HANNA, LL.D. Vols. I. II. Edinburgh Sutherland and Knox; London: Hamilton, Adams and Co. 1849, 50.

:

his title-page: "Hic interim liber, honori Agricolæ, soceri mei, destinatus, professione pietatis, aut laudatus erit, aut excusatus."

Without further preface, we will introduce our readers to the subject of our article.

Thomas Chalmers, the son of "a dyer, shipowner, and general merchant," in the small town of Anstruther, on the coast of Fife, was born on the 17th March, 1780. One of a numerous family

there were fourteen brothers and sisters-he shared the ordinary education of the middle classes of Scotland. After an initiation at the parish school under a master who might have served Dickens for a model, while depicting the education of David Copperfield, he was transferred, before he was twelve years old, to the College of S. Andrews. Here his biographer discovers the first intimation of his future greatness, and the occasion illustrates so singularly a feature of Scotch religionism, that we are tempted to transcribe the passage in which it is related.

THERE are certain names, both in past literature and present life, which live in a kind of atmosphere of indefinite reputation. They are frequent in our ears, they recur to our minds with the familiarity of old acquaintance, and establish a sort of recognized position in our memory; and yet, if we were suddenly required to explain the ground of their possession, to analyze the associations connected with them, and assign the deeds or words by which their reputation has been achieved, we should, probably, be entirely at a loss. They have gained general notoriety, they have somehow earned the title volitare per ora virûm, and pass through our mouths on the strength of it; but this is all we can say. The special actions of those who bore them, the particular incidents of their lives, the circumstantial narrative of their career, can be recalled, if at all, only by a distinct mental effort. We have admitted, rather than recognized, their popularity. But popularity is never thus acquired, though its acquisition, once made, may be thus maintained. There must have been, in all these cases, some inner circle of worshippers, who their plaudits gave with a far more earnest and homefelt enthusiasm. The charm of sympathy in special pursuits, the connexions of time, or place, or interest, the mighty influences of personal contact, have inspired them with that earnest admiration which enabled them to seat the object of it in a niche-constructed of more or less permanent materials-in the temple of fame. They admire so earnestly, that the goodnatured world is willing to take their estimate on trust, and acknowledge their hero, not by its own testing, but on their recommendation. It is conceived, and for the most part rightly, that the correla-pression made by his prayers in the Prayer-Hall, to tive of genuine admiration is real worth. And thus a name gathers with the many a halo of indistinct reputation, because it is a substance of real and

ascertained value with the few.

To most of our readers, Chalmers, is, probably, just one of these names. None are ignorant of it; few, probably, have any very definite idea of the reasons of its claim to be known and remembered. He was a leader in the Free-Kirk movement-he was a great pulpit-orator-he wrote a Bridgewater Treatise, and a great many other volumes-these, probably, are the ideas which the mention of his name will successively, and, perhaps, very gradually, excite. Few, we suspect, have attempted to read much of the aforesaid volumes; fewer still of those few have persisted in the attempt; yet all acknowledge the name to be one of general interest, and many would, probably, be glad to attach more definite ideas to it; and we think we can promise our readers somewhat both of entertainment and instruction, if they will skim with us over the pages of the two volumes-all that has yet been published-of his life.

The writer is his son-in-law, Dr. Hanna; and he has fulfilled his task well and carefully. His

It was then the practice at S. Andrews, that all the members of the university assembled daily in the pubconducted by the theological students. The hall was lic hall for morning and evening prayers, which were open to the public, but in general the invitation was not largely accepted. In his first theological session, it came, by rotation, to be Dr. Chalmers' turn to pray. His prayer, an amplification of the Lord's Prayer, clause by clause consecutively, was so originally and yet so eloquently worded, that universal wonder and very general admiration were excited by it. "I remember still," writes one who was himself an auditor, "after the lapse of fifty-two years, the powerful im

which the people of S. Andrews flocked when they knew that Chalmers was to pray. The wonderful tributes and works of God, and still more, perhaps, flow of eloquent, vivid, ardent description of the atthe horrid cruelties, immoralities, and abominations the astonishing, harrowing delineation of the miseries, inseparable from war, which always came in more or less in connexion with the bloody warfare in which we were engaged with France, called forth the wonderment of the hearers. He was then only sixteen years of age, and he showed a taste and capacity for composition of the most glowing and eloquent kind. Even then, his style was very much the same as at the period when he attracted so much notice and made such powerful impression in the pupit and by the press."

What a keen, though unconscious, satire on the practice of extemporaneous prayer! It is evidence that all the parties concerned mistake it for a sermon. It does not occur to them to regard it as a solemn act of communion with God; it wears the aspect simply of an oratorical exhibition," conducted by the theological students." Every turn of expression tells this tale, every phrase betrays the secret. "The universal wonder and very general admiration" of the people, who, according to

the account of the "auditor," came in flocks to From these grievances he speedily made his enjoy the powerful impression" produced by escape, and soon after took the step which deterthe flow of eloquent, vivid, ardent description," mined his future career, by obtaining, from the or to luxuriate in the pleasing horror of the "as-Presbytery of S. Andrews, his "license as a tonishingly harrowing delineation" of the miseries preacher of the Gospel." This is a step preparaof war, may have been very just, but can scarcely tory to ordination, by which the candidate is adbe regarded as very expressive of a spirit of prayer. mitted to a sort of probation. The age at which it And when we recollect that the chief performer in is usually taken is twenty-one; Chalmers however this exhibition was a lad of sixteen, it is difficult was allowed to enter upon it before he was nineto read the passage without being a good deal teen, on the recommendation of a friend, who destartled at the character of a religious system in scribed him to the Presbytery as "a lad o' which a college can authorize, and a minister re- pregnant pairts." It does not appear why he was late, such a scene, without the least consciousness so anxious to anticipate the usual time; for relig of its profanity. ious objects had as yet taken no strong hold upon his mind, nor was he in any hurry to exercise the privilege of preaching thus conferred upon him. He first made a tour in England, then settled down for some time in Edinburgh, attending the lectures of Professors Playfair, Robison, and Dugald Stewart. The interests of general science were those which principally occupied him; his warmest enthusiasm was dedicated to chemistry and mathematics; the preparations for the labors of his profession seem at that time to have employed very little either of his time or his attention. assigned to the performance of clerical duties a very secondary position. The arrangements of the first engagement of that kind which he undertook are thus described by his biographer :

In spite, however, of the temptation afforded by this early success in prayer, the bent of Chalmers' mind was anything but theological. If he were aware of his oratorical powers, he felt, probably, that other subjects might afford them a wider and a freer scope. There was, indeed, a theological debating society at S. Andrews, which was, no doubt, a necessary supplement to the more public exercise in the Prayer Hall; and in its list of members occurs the name, not only of Chalmers, but of another, which has earned recent and unexpected laurels in the fields of theology-John Indeed, it is quite remarkable how completely he Campbell. Who knows whether the celebrated quotation, by which it was triumphantly established that the phrase "preventing grace" was not unknown to Milton, may not have been first stored up in the mind of the future privy councillor to meet the exigencies of a theological debate in S. Mr. Chalmers resolved to accept, in the mean time, Andrews? It must, at any rate, be a satisfaction the situation which Mr. Shaw's kindness had opened to all English churchmen to know that Lord Camp-made and accepted, that instead of the manse at to him. That kindness was increased by the offer bell has had a theological education, even though Cavers being occupied solitarily by Mr. Chalmers, he that education were completed before the age of should live with Mr. Shaw in his manse at Roberton, eighteen, and its only fruit the production of an ex- which was only about seven miles distant from temporaneous prayer in the Hall of S. Andrews. Cavers church, to which he could ride over and return each Sabbath day.-P. 53.

Chalmers left college when he was little more than seventeen, and occupied for a year what seems to have proved a very uncongenial situation, as tutor to ten young children in a private family. The pupils were troublesome and the elder part of the society not very friendly. The case is not an uncommon one; but Chalmers' natural spirit and college reputation made it probably more than usually uncomfortable to him. He was, too, in that doubtful age between boy and man, at which injuries are most readily imagined, and most keenly

resented.

His notions of ministerial duty were then clearly confined to a weekly preaching. They changed But even several greatly in his subsequent life. years later than this, and after he had been some time in the sole charge of a parish, we find him asserting, and even publishing, the same low estinate of the responsibilities of his office.

"The author of this pamphlet," he writes, "can assert, from what to him is the highest of all authority, the authority of his own experience, that after the satisfactory discharge of his parish duties, a minister may enjoy five days in the week of uninterrupted leisure for the prosecution of any science in which his taste may dispose him to engage."-P. 93.

"The people of the house," he writes to a friend, "don't seem to know the place in which a tutor should stand; hence a cold, distant, contemptuous reserve, which I was never accustomed to, and which exposes me to the most disagreeable feelings. The vexation An astounding sentiment, which Dr. Chalmers of mind that arises from this circumstance is much heightened by the difficulties of my employment. The oldest boy, about fifteen," (we should recollect that the tutor was but two years older,) "who has been two years at college, seems to have no idea of any respect being due to my office; his behavior not only made his own management a matter of difficulty, but had also a tendency to weaken my authority over my other pupils. My predecessor, as I have reason to believe, in compliance with the wishes of the female part of the family, allowed his pupils several improper indulgences; hence they had contracted habits quite incompatible with the order and discipline which ought to be observed, and I was obliged to have recourse to strong measures in order to root them out. These gave offence, I thought, to the ladies of the house, and I ascribed to this in great part their high looks and sour, forbidding deportment."-P. 25.

did his best in later years, when his conceptions were far different, to suppress. While such, however, were his views, it is not surprising that we find him engaged at one and the same time in a canvass for the vacant parish of Kilmany, and for a mathematical assistantship in the college of S. Andrews. The latter object was the first obtained; and he threw himself into his new pursuit with all the impetuous energy which forms the most striking feature of his character. He had already acquired that sounding style and copious vocabulary which marks his later efforts; and throughout his life he lavished on all subjects alike the same prodigality of fluent declamation. It was characteristic of his rhetoric, that not even the proverbial dryness of mathematical studies could subdue or even temper its abundance. I

was thus that he addressed the young gentlemen | Dr. Rotheram, laughing and in anger by turns. At of S. Andrews on their initiation to the mysteries length Dr. Hill interfered, and with some difficulty of Euclid :silenced Mr. Chalmers, who proceeded with the examination as coolly as if nothing had passed.-P. 66.

These Elements of Euclid, gentlemen, have raised for their author a deathless monument of fame. For This scene was followed by its natural and obtwo thousand years they have maintained their su- vious result. However entertaining his eloquence periority in the schools, and been received as the most might be to his pupils during the session, the exappropriate introduction to geometry. It is one of the few books which elevate our respect for the genius close could not be very agreeable to his employers; pectation of a long and sarcastic speech" at its of antiquity. It has survived the wreck of ages. It and he was accordingly given to understand that had its days of adversity and disgrace in the dark his services would be no longer required. This period of ignorance and superstition, when everything valuable in the literature of antiquity was buried in was a severe blow. Kilmany, to which he had the dust and solitude of cloisters, and the still voice been presented, was only about nine miles distant of truth was drowned in the jargon of a loud and dis- from S. Andrews, a distance, as we have seen, by putatious theology. But it has been destined to re- no means inconsistent with his notion of sufficient appear in all its ancient splendor. We ascribe not residence; and he had fully intended to unite the indeed so high a character to it because of its antiqui- parochial and the collegiate employment. That ty; but why be carried away by the rashness of in- hope seemed now destroyed. Chalmers, however, novation? why pour an indiscriminate contempt on was not a man to be baffled in any matter on which systems and opinions because they are old? Truth he had set his mind. He soon determined to fight is confined to no age and to no country. Its voice has out the quarrel; and announced his intention of been heard in the temple of Egypt, as well as in the opening mathematical classes of his own at S. AnEuropean University. It has darted its light athwart drews, and defying the University to open compethe gloom of antiquity, as well as given a new splen- tition. The classes were filled, in spite of considdor to the illumination of modern times. We have witnessed the feuds of political innovation-the cruelty erable opposition from the college, and an and murder which have marked the progress of its Introductory Lecture gave him the opportunity of destructive career. Let us also tremble at the heed- investing his bold position with a halo of magniloless spirit of reform which the confidence of a mis-quence. guided enthusiasm may attempt in the principles and investigations of philosophy. What would have been the present degradation of science, had the spirit of each generation been that of contempt for the labors and investigations of its ancestry? Science would exist in a state of perpetual infancy. Its abortive tendencies to improvement would expire with the short-lived labors of individuals, and the extinction of every new race would again involve the world in the gloom of ignorance. Let us tremble to think that it would require the production of a new miracle to restore the forgotten discoveries of Newton.-Pp. 60,

61.

"True," he said, "I am different from what I was, but the difference is only in external circumstances. I feel not that my energies have expired, though I no longer tread that consecrated ground where the Muses have fixed their residence. I feel not that science has deserted me, though I breathe not the air which ventilates the halls of S Salvator.”—P. 74.

Chemistry was soon added to mathematics; the popularity of the lecturer increased; the university began to relax her hostility, and the rebel was almost converted into a friend. But though he had thus carried his point in front, he was attacked in It is easy to imagine that such a method of the rear by another adversary. It was rumored teaching mathematics must have produced no small that some ministers, who took a different view from excitement at S. Andrews. But the usual fate of his own of the duties of their office, were about to hasty and untempered energy awaited him. Chal- bring his conduct under the notice of the Presbytery mers does not appear at this period of his life to of Cupar. The censure, however, thus obtained, have had the least notion of conciliation, or respect was not severe enough to withdraw him entirely for the rights or feelings of others. Full of his from his work. His mathematical lectures were own impressions, he hurried straight to his work, discontinued, but his chemical course was repeated, careless of obstacles, and indifferent to the preju- not only at S. Andrews, but in Kilmany itself, apdices which he might alarm. The authorities ap-parently to the great edification of his people. He pear to have felt the usual alarm which such was, however, in such a bad odor with his clerical energetic procedure from below commonly excites neighbors that the minister of Kirbaldy refused on in the breast of authorities. They probably re- one occasion to lend him his pulpit in the service garded Chalmers, not altogether without reason, as of a charity for which he was interested. But a forward young man; and his conduct certainly chemistry again came to the aid of her votary. was not likely to disabuse them of the impression. Chalmers transferred his efforts from the kirk to At the close of the first session, the scene in the the lecture-room, and gained probably a larger public hall, the same, we suppose, in which prayers sum for his purpose than he could have acquired were wont to be conducted," was a singular by a more directly professional exertion. We can scarcely wonder that the worthy minister felt somewhat shy of him; for besides the scandal of the When Dr. Rotheram, professor of natural philoso-mathematical and chemical classes, and of the phy, had finished the examination of his class, Mr. pamphlet, then recently published, from which we Chalmers, whose classes were next in course, stepped have already quoted his estimate of a minister's forward to the table, and broke out into a severe in- duties, Chalmers was at the moment on duty at Kirvective against Professor Vilant, for having given testimonials to students, without consulting him, their kaldy with the S. Andrews corps of volunteers, in teacher. The speech was long and sarcastic. It was the double capacity of chaplain and lieutenant. He amusing to see the academic board; old Mr. Cook must have seemed to his neighbors to be the repreirritated and vexed; Mr. Hill, puffy and fidgety; sentative of anything rather than the Christian Dr. Playfair, getting up twice or thrice and tugging ministry. the speaker by the arm; Dr. Hunter, with unvarying But a great change was soon about to come over countenance, his eyes sedately fastened on the floor; him. The first period of his life was passing.

one:

But our reflections have led us away from our history. We will illustrate by a few extracts the nature of the change of which we have been speaking; for the phenomena of a really religious mind are most valuable and instructive, even though their ultimate evolution be inadequate or partially erroneous. We have seen how little time he thought it necessary to give to his ministerial work, how soon its duties seemed to be satisfactorily fulfilled, how many other pursuits he was willing to carry on in conjunction with it. It is evident that he had then no strong appreciation of the realities of the spiritual world. His preaching appears to have been little more than merely ethical exhortations to morality or general sentiments about the power and the goodness of the Almighty.

"With indignation," he exclaims, in one of his sermons at Kilmany, "do we see a speculative knowledge of the doctrines of Christianity preferred to the the effusion of zeal the unintelligible jargon of duties of morality and virtue. The cant of enthusiasm pretended knowledge-are too often considered as the characteristics of a disciple of Jesus; whilst, amid all these deceitful appearances, justice, charity, and mercy, the great topics of Christ's admonitions, are entirely overlooked * **The faith of Christianity is praiseworthy and meritorious, only because it is derived from the influence of virtuous sentiments on the mind *** He who has been rightly trained in his religious sentiments, by carefully perusing the Scriptures of truth, will learn thence, that the law of God is benevolence to man, and an abiding sense of gratitude and piety *** But let him allow himself to be guided by the instructions of our mystical theologians, and all will be involved in gloom and obscurity *** Let us, my brethren, beware of such errors. Let us view such fanatical vagaries with the contempt they deserve, and walk in the cer tain path marked out to us by reason and by Scripture *** Thus shall we exemplify the real nature of the Christian service, which consists in gratefully adoring the Supreme Being, and in diffusing the blessed influences of charity, moderation and peace.”

away; he was about to enter upon its second stage with a total revulsion of feeling and sentiment. We observe that both Dr. Chalmers and his biographer seem to shrink from applying to this transition the term which might be supposed to be most natural and familiar to them. Neither of them speaks of it as his conversion. The word perhaps suggested to them the same extravagant and fanatical notions with which, from its abuse by a certain school of religion, it is most frequently associated in our own minds. Their clear judgment and sound practical sense could not but reject the exaggerated ideas of miraculous interposition, the absurd and almost ludicrous attempts to fix the scene, the day, and the hour, from which both reason and feeling revolt. Yet, if these exaggerations and absurdities are set aside, the history of this period of Dr. Chalmers' life supplies an exact illustration of that mental phenomenon which is described by the evangelical school with some additional peculiarities of their own, under the name of conversion. The transition was not, indeed, in his case from an immoral to a holy life, nor was it produced in a moment; nor was it the sudden effect of a dream or vision or a strong mental impression, excited by any unforeseen event. But it was a real transition from indifference to earnestness, from a carelessness about spiritual influences and the supernatural world to a most vivid and lasting appreciation of their reality and necessity. Illness and sorrow did their part in first awakening the spiritual sympathies of his soul; and the process was probably the more real and durable from its comparative slowness It cost him some years of anxious struggle before his soul was able to find its rest; but, that struggle once over, he seems to have gone steadily onward without a single hesitation or misgiving in the new course on which he had entered. For it was a new course to him. His favorite sciences, his manifold pursuits, were all thrown resolutely into the background, and the whole energies of his active mind were devoted with a single purpose and eminently successful re--Pp. 147, 9. sult to the labors of his profession. In calling the attention of our readers to this striking fact, we do not, of course, forget that it was but an imperfect form of Christianity and an inadequate conception of its doctrines to which those energies were devoted. His lot was cast in a society cut loose by its own act from the Church of the Apostles, and the great army of Saints and Martyrs gathered in from successive generations; and meagrely furnished out, instead, from the resources of a single mind, in an age of unexampled tumult, with a narrow theology and an awkward polity. But of this These books, it must be remembered, were not he never dreamt; he poured his whole soul with denounced in consequence of any preference for a unhesitating faith into the system in which he different form of doctrine from that which they exlived, or rather he sustained himself on the great hibited. They were the only religious books truths which most affected him, without at all relikely to fall in his way; and were, in fact, degarding the system through which they came to nounced only in that capacity. Distinctive relig him. For his disregard of conventional rules often ious tenets, of any kind, were as yet the abomina scandalized more rigid Presbyterians; the divine tion of the literate and scientific preacher. Such right which they pleaded for their platform never seems to have crossed his mind, or to have merited was his frame of mind during nearly six years of the attention of a moment with him. It was to twenty-ninth year, three deaths in his own family, his occupation of Kilmany Manse. But in his him a mere machinery for conveying religious in rapid succession, were followed by a severe illtruth, an organized establishment for diffusing it over the land, perhaps better, perhaps worse than ness, which for some weeks left his own life in others. As such, however, he accepted it, and doubt. He rose from his bed at last with new worked in it contentedly, undisturbed apparently thoughts and aims :— by a single thought that any notion more august or more powerful was involved in the idea of a .Church.

The religious books which he was afterwards most fond of were at this time peculiarly distaste

ful to him.

Bending over the pulpit, and putting on the books named the strong emphasis of dislike, he had said"Many books are favorites with you, which, I am sorry to say, are no favorites of mine. When you are reading Newton's Sermons, and Baxter's Saints' Rest, and Doddridge's Rise and Progress, where do Matthew, Mark, Luke and John go to?"-P. 102.

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'My confinement," so he wrote to a friend, "has fixed on my heart a very strong impression of the insignificance of time-an impression which I trust