518 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF THE LATE REV. DR CHALMERS. 



recent movement of our country, — the Disruption of a National Church, with all 

 its accompanying excitements,— its breaking up of old associations, — its contend- 

 ing opinions and hasty sayings, — without running counter to the opinions of many 

 early admirers, without partially, at least, alienating himself from former friends, 

 and separating himself from former coadjutors. On such points it were vain to 

 expect a concurrent judgment on all he has done and said. But of this I feel as- 

 sured, that none who have had favourable opportunities of personal acquaintance 

 with his character and disposition, — that none who have deeply entered upon a 

 study of his writings, so as fully to appreciate the lofty and benevolent spirit of 

 their sentiments and tendencies, will hesitate to admit that he was both a good 

 and a great man, — that he was imbued with the spirit of Christian philanthropy, 

 — that he had a fervent mind, keen sensibility, and indomitable energy. His 

 highest praise, but, at the same time, his just eulogium is, that his fervency of 

 spirit, his sensibility, and his energy, were all exercised and called forth in the 

 one great and magnificent cause, — promoting the glory of God and the welfare of 

 Mankind. In all his meditations, and in all his labours, he had ever distinctly 

 before his eyes the advancement of his fellow-creatures, in their best and truest 

 relations to this world and the world to come. 



His greatest delight Avas to contrive plans and schemes for raising degraded 

 human nature in the scale of moral being, — the favourite object of his contempla- 

 tion was human nature attaining the highest perfection of which it is capable ; 

 and, as that perfection was manifested in saintly individuals, in characters of great 

 acquirement adorned with the graces of Christian piety. His greatest sorrow was 

 to contemplate masses of mankind hopelessly bound to vice and misery by chains 

 of passion, ignorance, and prejudice. As no one more firmly believed in the power 

 of Christianity to regenerate a fallen race, — as faith and experience both conspired 

 to assure him that the only effectual deliverance for the sinful and the degraded 

 was to be wrought by Christian education, and by the active agency of Christian 

 instruction penetrating into tlie haunts of vice and the abodes of misery ; — these 

 acquisitions he strove to gain for all his beloved countrymen ; for these he laboured, 

 and for these he was willing to spend and be spent. From the fields of earthly 

 toil and trial he has been removed, and he has entered into his rest. The great 

 business of Christian benevolence, and the contest with ignorance and crime, are 

 left in other hands. But his memory will not die, nor his good example in these 

 things be forgotten. His countrymen will do his memory justice. Of the thou- 

 sands who were assembled to witness the funeral procession which conveyed his 

 earthly remains to the tomb, all felt conviction on that day that a Great Man had 

 fallen in Israel, — that a Scotchman had gone to the grave, of whom Scotland 

 might be proud, — a Scotchman who had earned a name in his counti-y's annals, 

 and a place in his country's literature, which will not pass away. 



