CHALMERS, ICKV. DR. THOMAS. 



i-MAT.MKKS, ItKV. DR. THOMAS. 



1H 







of Dmmld Stewart. Robisoa. Playfair, and 

 of their (ame. It was at this time that his 

 and natural soienoe, as well as his tendency 

 oa moral and social subject*, Anteonapieuoualy 

 Aftera period of desultory occupation. 6r.t a 

 of Caven in Roxburghshire, and then as 

 ' professor at St. Andrews, he 



I to the living of Kilmany, in hi* native county of Fifeshire; 

 iato which parish be was inducted on the lath of May 1803. He w*s 

 i yean of tgr, and ho continued in the position ol 



I of Kilinanv Ull July 1815. Then twelve yean 



v*n efentfol period in hit mental history. On adopting the 

 ho had brought into it no Tery deoidcd views in 



sstrmal theology. He WM atUohed to what was called the "Mode- 

 rate,- a* distinct from what wai called the " ETangelical " party of the 



a day or 



He was of opinion too, that by 



two each week to the preparation of his sermons and to official clerical 

 acts, a clergyman could amply discharge all his proper duties, so as to 

 have the rest of his time at bis disposal for whatever other occupations 

 interest*-! him. He carried this view into practice. During the fint 



year of his Incumbency he varied his professional work at Kilmany by 

 oounes of leotores on ttK^., md chemistry at St Andrews. 

 His prefeieme at this time for professorial over clerical work, and for 

 natural soisnrn over theology was indicated by his being candidate in 

 18<M for the chair of Natural Philosophy at St Andrews. With even 

 asm chance of success he offered himself in the following year as a 

 candidate for the mathematical chair in Edinburgh, vacant by the 

 transference of Mr. Playfair to the natural philosophy chair on 

 Rooieon's death. Mr., afterwards Sir John, Leslie, obtained the post, 

 aad it was with referenoe to an argument in Leslie's favour urged at 

 the time by Play&ir, to the effect that " the vigorous prosecution of 

 mathematical or natural science was incompatible with clerical duties 

 aad habits " that Mr. Cbalmen made his fint literary appearance. In 

 reply to Playfair he published an anonymous pamphlet, vehemently 

 nilmtim the clergy against what he regarded as a " cruel and illiberal 

 iariiasiinn "a pamphlet, the main tenor of which, if not its specific 

 etslimiiU, he lived to disown. His next publication was iu 1807 

 when, his thoughts oa political economy receiving a stimulus from the 

 agitation caused by Napoleon's decrees against British commerce, he 

 issued a pamphlet entitled Inquiry into the Extent and Stability of 

 National Resources.' This publication had success sufficient to inspire 

 him tar a time with the idea of coming to London to increase his 

 literary connections. Circumstances preventing him from realising 

 this idea, he continued at Kilmany, with a growing reputation for 

 various attainment*, as well as for extraordinary energy, accompanied 

 with some eccentricity, of character and manner. In 1809 he made 

 his first speech in the General Assembly of the Scottish Church the 

 scene of so many of his oratorical triumphs in after life. In the same 

 year he became a contributor to the ' Edinburgh Encyclopedia ' under 

 the editorship of Dr, now Sir David, Brewster; and it was partly to 

 his studies while preparing an article on ' Christianity ' for that work, 

 aad partly to the solemnising effect* of a severe illness which, during 

 the winter of 1 409-10 brought him to the very brink of the grave, that 

 he attributed the great moral and spiritual change of his life. Then, 

 for the Ant time, as he thought, he saw Christianity in its true light ; 

 and Uwo for th. fir* time ak were his views of the duties of the 

 eternal cOoe, as he thought, aufflcieaUy deepened and enlarged. Exter- 

 aelljr the change exhibited iteelf in this, that whereas hitherto he had 

 Uloag-d to the " Moderate" party in the Scotch Church theu in the 

 majority, he now ranked with the M Evangelic il " party, which formed 

 but a minority. But the fruit* of the change were more immediately 

 risible in his own altered manner of performing his clerical duties. 

 * "* "P b " ** in natural soienoe and in political economy, 

 i ** ff r"fJ** m OB wllh * ""* * ati ** before; contributing 

 also to tie -Christian Instructor,' the 'Eclectic Review,' and othe? 

 nodicaU-it was now observed that in all that Mr. Chalmers did the 

 ilamni of a deep seaee of religion, and a conviction of the paramount 

 claim. "/Christian faith oa the thoughts of man, were discernible. 

 Always eloancat in the pulpit, his eloquence now bunt forth in strains 

 *>" awd fervour as had never been heard from him before; 

 wm far aad near people went to bear the wonderful minister of 

 aad missionary societies, for which he had formerly 

 i oseupied much of his attention ; and, instead ..f 

 aerial stadias to bis weekly sermons from the 

 t a regular organisation of his parish w.th a view to 

 r familiar with the interest) of every individual in it, and 

 T "* " " epiriloal as well as intellectual and economic 

 Utheaddet of these new occupations, which be prosecuted 

 ttcaal ewlhnsfasm, he married, in 1818, Mis* Grace 

 Pratt, the daughter of a retired captain in the army. In 1813 his 

 Chrietlsaity' appeared in the -Edinburgh Encyclopaedia,' 

 the earn, year it was publiebed, with additions, in a separate 

 i as a Uvalueoa- The KviUooes of Christianity.' The following 



I^-T** *,. Mt ^~ r ~ P""r nwn oveTthe south of 

 BwtUnd as that of a man of powerful mind and extraordinary 



when, in 1815, or iu the thirty-sixth year of his age, he wai 

 called from bis quiet country parish to assume the pastoral care of 

 Troo parish in the city of Glasgow. He remained in Glasgow in all 

 eight years. In 1816 the degree of D.D. was conferred on him by 

 the University of Glasgow. From 1815 to 1819 he was minister of 

 Tron parish. From 1819 to 1823 be was minister of the newly- 

 constituted parish of St. John's. These eight yean were the 

 of his highest celebrity as a pulpit-orator. In this capacity, all 

 Glasgow, and soon all Scotland rang with his fame. One of the most 

 enthusiastic description* iu Mr Lockhart'a account of Scottish 

 celebrities at that time, published under the title of ' Peter's I. 

 to his Kinsfolk,' U that given of Chalmers in his Glasgow pulpit A 

 picture so elaborate and glowing from such a pen of a man whose 

 professed position was simply that of a Presbyterian clergyman of a 

 Glasgow parish, proves that already he was no longer thought of only 

 in that capacity, but u a man of truly great genius. " I know not 

 what it is ' said Jeffrey, iu 1816, " but there U something altogether 

 remarkable about that man. It reminds mo more of what one reads 

 of as the effect of the eloquence of Demosthenes than anything I ever 

 heard." The same impression was afterwards produced on men of all 

 kinds in England, us well as in Scotland on Hazlitt, Canning, Wilber- 

 force, Hull, and Foster. Part of the secret was that Chalmen was 

 not one of those orators whose power evanesces in the moment of 

 their actual utterance, but a man of massive, large, and substantial 

 thought, whose every speech was the enunciation and illustration of 

 some principle or generalisation, and whose language was full of 

 extraordinary felicities, memorable turns of phrase, and gleams of 

 poetic conception. Perhaps the first exhibition of his oratory in 

 which this union in him of high intellectual attainments and general 

 literary genius with the specific qualities of the orator, was con- 

 spicuously brought out, was on the occasion of the delivery, in 1816, 

 of a scries of week-day lectures on Astronomy in its connection 

 with lleligion. The excitement caused by these ' Astronomical Dis- 

 courses ' was unprecedented; and their popularity, when published in 

 the same year, rivalled that of the contemporary ' Waver. 

 Hut his regular pulpit sermons were no less extraordinary as displays 

 of mental and oratorical power; and on his occasional visits to Edin- 

 burgh, London, and other places, his fame as an orator preceded him, 

 and drew crowds to hear him. At Edinburgh his oratory was 

 exhibited not only in the pulpit, but also in debate in the general 

 assembly, or annual ecclesiastical parliament of Scotland. Here as a 

 leader of the " Evangelical " party, then gradually attaining numbers 

 and influence, he took a polemical part in gome of the Scotch eccle- 

 siastical questions of the time, and always with the effect of a man at 

 once great in wisdom and resistless in speech. His speeches, like hU 

 sermons, were generally read ; and very rarely indeed did he speak 

 extempore. With all his extraordinary popularity as an orator, how- 

 ever, no man better appreciated than he did the exact valua of such 

 popularity " a popularity," which, in his own characteristic language, 

 "rifles homo of its sweets, and by elevating a man above his fellows, 

 places him in a region of desolation, where he stands a conspicuous 

 mark for the shafts of malice, envy, and detraction ; a popularity 

 which, with its head among storms, and its feet on the treaci; 

 quicksands, has nothing to lull the agonies of its tottering existence 

 but the hosannahs of a drivelling generation." Far more important 

 in his own eyes than these pulpit services which brought him such 

 :iosauualn, wore his practical schemes for showing the social oftic .icy 

 of Christianity. It was Dr. Chalmers's fixed and lifelong belief that in 

 religion alone was there a full remedy for the evils of society, and that 

 all schemes of social amelioration would be futile which did n 

 at working Christianity through the hearts of the people down into 

 heir habits and households. Subordinate to this belief was his 

 attachment to the parochial system of social organisation that system 

 which divides a community into small manageable miues, marked out 

 >y local boundaries, and each having a sufficient ecclesiastical an. I 

 educational appar.itui within itself. Disliking with his whole heart 

 the English Poor-Law system, he was of opinion that, if the parochial 

 system were properly worked, pauperism could be provided for without 

 a poor-law at all, by the judicious direction, under clerical and lay 

 superintendence, of private benevolence. In order practically to iliu - 

 trate these views, he undertook a vast experiment, fint with Trou 

 iarih, and then with that of St. John's. The population of this 

 atter parish (iu which Edward Irving was for some time Dr. Chalmers's 

 assistant) was upwards of 10,000, including perhapi the poorest part 

 >f the operative population iu Glasgow ; but such was his zeal, such 

 lis practical sagacity, and such hii power of influencing persons fit to 

 M his agents, that iu a short time the parish was organised both for 

 economical and educational purposes in a manner unknown before, 

 schools being set up in every part of it, and the poorest lanes visited 

 wriodically each by its own special teacher and inspector. The results 

 of his experiment, with his speculations in connection with it, were 

 published by him (1819-1823) in a series of quarterly tracts, on the 

 Christian and Civic Economy of Largo Towns ; ' which, with two 

 volumes of 'Sermons,' published respectively iu 1813 and 1820, two 

 articles on ' Pauperism ' contributed to the ' Edinburgh Uuviow ' in 

 1817, and a scriuun in the same year on the Death of the Princess 

 Charlotte, formed, along with the ' Astronomical Discourses ' already 

 mentioned, his chief literary exertions during his residence iu Glasgow. 



