“ The whole subject of religion assumed a new aspect of importance in his eyes. He came to see that he had been living without God, and the discovery appalled him. The will of God now became an imperative rule to him, and every energy was bent towards bringing his own heart and life into conformity to it. In such a man as Pascal the sublime transition had been made from the highest walks of mathematical science to the still higher walk of faith. Might not he be able to realise what Pascal had achieved? For a whole year Chalmers laboured to effect this change. ”

“ Remaining the same, we find his singularly energetic, forceful nature; his high integrity and kindliness of heart, as it constantly streamed out towards his family, his friends, and his flock; his eager desire for the welfare of his people, for their advancement and elevation in all that he counted good, pure, and noble; his indomitable energy of purpose and fearless contending for right and truth; his passionate intensity of conviction, rolling itself out in whirlwinds and tempests of eloquence, that swept all before it. ”

“ From the heated atmosphere of public controversy we make a pleasant transition when we accompany Chalmers on the visits he paid from time to time to London and other places, and when we sit by him in the privacy of his home. We see something of the spontaneous outflow of both mind and heart; we are charmed with his genuine humanity, his interest in life, his humour and simplicity, and, in his devotional hours, with his profound humility and intense aspiration after holiness. ”

“ Chalmers succeeded in inspiring men and women in Glasgow, young men very emphatically, with the spirit of Christian service. His 'agency,' as he called it, resembled the followers of Saul, 'a band of men whose hearts God had touched.' In after years they formed the very élite of the earnest Christian laymen of the West; and to this day, though all of them have passed away, their fervour and devotedness are still found in some of their children and children's children. ”

“ The imperishable soul of the poor man is of as much value as the soul of the rich; and I will resist, even to the death, that alienation which goes but to swell the luxury of the higher ranks at the expense of the Christianity of the lower.'
Dr. Chalmers was moved in the very depths of his soul—for the proposal of the Town Council was a blow at the ruling idea of his heart—and he delivered himself of these sentiments with such overwhelming energy that his friends at the moment trembled for the consequences. ”

“ Am I not too light-hearted and too luxurious, and altogether too self-indulgent? Certain it is that in and of myself I am altogether vile and worthless, and would need, in dependence on grace alone, to have more of watchfulness unto prayer, more of self-denial, and a far more tender sense of the evil of ungodliness than habitually and practically belong to me.'—'July 4. Never am I in a better frame than when dwelling in simple faith on Christ's offered righteousness, and making it the object of my acceptation. ”

“ I have heard many men deliver sermons far better arranged in regard to argument, and have heard very many deliver sermons far more uniform in elegance both of conception and of style; but most unquestionably I have never heard, whether in England or in Scotland, or in any other country, any preacher whose eloquence is capable of producing an effect so strong and irresistible as his.'
It was soon after, that on hearing a speech of Chalmers's Lord Jeffrey remarked, 'I know not what it is, but there is something altogether remarkable about that man. ”

“ His regard for the old parochial economy of the Kirk of Scotland was a supreme feeling; he looked on every minister as having charge of the people of the parish, and held that it was his duty to watch over their spiritual condition. It was his sense of the infinite importance of this, if Christianity was to retain any hold on the people of our cities, that had made him such an enemy of pluralities, and that roused his intense opposition to the settlement of Dr. Duncan Macfarlane as minister of the High Church of Glasgow, while he retained the office of Principal of the University. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Chalmers urged with great earnestness that all its methods were in themselves incompetent to secure this end. Without due provision for the moral and spiritual nature, the true welfare and the true comfort of men could never be achieved. Besides this, he held that society was ever tending to a condition which could not but defeat the very ends which political economy had in view. It was the constant tendency of population to increase, and thus outgrow production—outgrow the provision for the supply of its material wants. ”

“ In planting churches, voluntaryism acted on the principle of attraction, aiming mainly at drawing in those who were more or less in sympathy with itself, and disposed to accept its ministrations. The theory of an established church, on the other hand, demanded a provision for the whole of the population, and supplied a ministry whose duty was to look after all the people, and ply them with the offers and the injunctions of Christianity. It was to make the practice and theory of the church in some degree to correspond that he had undertaken and prosecuted his great church-extension movement. ”

“ Every evening one of Newton's (of Olney) sermons was read at his bedside by one of the family in rotation. It was one of the books which his brother had lately denounced from the pulpit of Kilmany, as drawing men away from the wholesome teaching of the gospels. Yet to his dying brother it brought heavenly comfort. And evidently that brother enjoyed a secret something which he had not. Could he be wrong? Must there not be reality in the experience that took away all fear of death, and made the youth of twenty-three so willing to die? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But, from the eminently practical character of his mind, it was not his habit to put the higher doctrines of Calvinism in the forefront of his preaching, or even of his theology. Man must be dealt with as a responsible being; his responsibility must ever have its place beside God's sovereignty. It would be ruinous to handle either of these doctrines in such a manner as to destroy or even impair the force of the other. The combination of the two was one of the great objects of his theological teaching.
Chalmers's style of theological discussion was very unlike the common. ”

“ Chalmers were wholly frustrated. The seven years that yet remained to him, if not the very busiest of his life, were years of peculiar tension, anxiety, and disappointment—things far more trying to the vital energies than work itself. The Church Extension scheme had to be worked out at home under the depressing influence of disappointment of Government help; and then came the crisis of the conflict with the civil courts,—the negotiations with Government, the taunts of Lord Aberdeen, the sickness of hope deferred, and, finally, the shattering of the national church. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He has learned that true life, in its every department, must be lived in fellowship with God. He has learned the way to God, to God reconciled, a loving Father, a considerate Master, a gracious Friend and Guide. He has seen the reality of Christ's atonement, and of the work of the Holy Spirit, and found a new value in prayer, and a new use of the sacred Scriptures. He has got new light on the true welfare of the people, and especially on the need for every one of personal contact with Christ ”

“ 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. ”

“ He has found a nobler theme and a higher inspiration for that eloquence which has moulded his labours in the pulpit. He is not less desirous to see the people prosperous and happy, but he has been convinced that their true welfare is dependent on heavenly grace, and, in the case of the poor, that there is nothing like Christian influence whether for preventing or alleviating the evils of poverty, or, where there are poor, raising them above the depressing conditions of their lot. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Writing to Sir George Sinclair in 1841, he said, 'Looking to the Christian interests of Scotland, I believe that more good could be done by the instrumentality of a disendowed church than by an established church exposed to such interferences as those of the Court of Session during the last few years.' And, under this belief, what remained of his life was devoted to the building up and strengthening of the Free Church, in the earnest hope that much of the blessing for which he had longed and worked and prayed so intensely would in this way be realised for his country. ”

“ National education without Christianity was a blunder not to be thought of. The rulers of the state ought to encourage the church as the highest instrument of good to the people. The division of the country into parishes and districts was important as securing a more efficient ministration of Christianity to every section of the community. A rate-supported system of relief to the poor was atrocious, because it hindered the exercise of Christian habits, it deadened the very charity which it professed to promote. ”

“ Natural ethics gave abundant proof that man's moral nature was disordered, and that he had lost fellowship with God; but it threw no light on the awfully important questions how that nature was to be healed, and how that fellowship was to be restored. The answer to these questions, as Chalmers often insisted, must come from a higher source. It was tantalising to a teacher of moral philosophy to have to leave man in this predicament, and to be restrained from dwelling on the response of revealed theology to his eager questionings. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We must now glance at Chalmers in his family and inner life during this busy and trying period of his life. A man who is forming new acquaintances by the hundred, and is constantly receiving the enthusiastic applause of thousands, is in no small danger of two things—of letting his home-affections become somewhat languid, and of neglecting his inner life. But in the case of Chalmers, we can find no evidence of either of these results. Shortly before his departure from St. Andrews, his domestic affections had been profoundly stirred by the death of his mother ”

“ The thoughtless young officer, who entered his church with the crowd as he would have entered the theatre; the fashionable lady, whose curiosity led her to hear the great popular orator; the busy merchant, with no thought nor desire beyond material things; the aspiring student, bent only on literary distinction—each person, arrested and brought to Christ by the force of his appeals, represented the many classes from among which, as Dr. Hanna tells us, it was the privilege of Chalmers to gather recruits for the Kingdom of Heaven. ”

“ The dearest object of my earthly existence is the elevation of the common people, humanised by Christianity and raised by the strength of their moral habits to a higher platform of human nature, and by which they may attain and enjoy the rank and consideration due to enlightened and companionable men.' But, though he offered no active opposition to the measure, he did not approve of it. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ Much nervous energy was consumed in resisting these unreasonable expectations, and if Chalmers had not come to be a great man, and possessed of a fame which overbore everything, he would certainly have suffered not a little in reputation from the necessity of so often applying a snub where kindness was meant, and becoming a transgressor where tradition had established its law.
During the eight years of his Glasgow incumbency many things happened, worthy to be noticed even in a short biography like this. First of all, his fame as a pulpit orator reached its climax ”

“ And, though no man had more respect for the poor, or more pleasure in his intercourse with them, he had an especial delight in the society of families of the highest rank, when refinement was blended with Christian worth, and the obligations of high station were conscientiously and gracefully fulfilled.
Most memorable in the history of Glasgow and in the history of Scottish Christianity were the eight years of labour spent by Dr. Chalmers in that city. ”