VI.

THOMAS CHALMERS.

AT the time of Dr. Andrew Thomson's death, THOMAS CHALMERS, the greatest of Scottish preachers, had been for some years Professor of Theology in the University of Edinburgh, and had, indeed, finished that unique and most instructive succession of pastorates which comprised what may be termed the ministerial portion of his wonderful career. He was born in Anstruther, in the county of Fife, on the 17th of March, 1780, and after an ordinary course of instruction at the parish school he entered the University of St. Andrews at the age of twelve. His juvenility made it impossible for him to take the full advantage of the classical portion of the curriculum, which then extended over the first two years of the college course, and it was not until the third year of his undergraduate life that his intellect really awoke. The first study which thoroughly interested him was mathematics, in which he became highly proficient, and for which he retained a

liking till the last. But he was drawn almost as eagerly to the departments of ethics and politics, for it was the seething time of the French Revolution, and he was well-nigh swept from his moorings, such as they were at that time, by Godwin's work on Political Justice.

From such a fate, however, he was saved by the influence on him, in the first year of his theological course, of Jonathan Edwards's famous "Treatise on the Freedom of the Will," which gave him such views of the personality, the greatness, the love, the wisdom, and the all-pervading energy of God, that he described himself long after as having "spent a twelvemonth in a sort of mental elysium," and said “that not a single hour elapsed in which the overpoweringly impressive imagination did not stand out bright before the inward eye; and that his custom was to wander early in the morning into the country, that amid the quiet scenes of nature he might luxuriate in the glorious conception." It was at that time the custom in the University of St. Andrews that all the members assembled daily in the public hall for morning and evening prayers, which were conducted by the theological students in regular order; and such was the eloquence with

which on these occasions Chalmers was accustomed to express his sense of the glory of the Divine attributes, that the citizens of the place flocked into the assembly-room when they knew that it was his turn to pray. But though there was in these cffusions a great coruscation of eloquent dissertation, there was no sense of spiritual need. They were sincere so far as they went; but they were the intellectual efforts of a Deist, and they had nothing in them of the humble supplications of a sinner, or of the lofty communion of a saint.

After passing through his theological curriculum he was licensed to preach the Gospel on the 31st of July, 1799, while he was yet but nineteen years of age. The law of the Church at that time required that a licentiate should be twenty-one years old, but it was set aside in his case on the ground that "he was a lad of pregnant parts;" and he virtually observed the law, after all, for though thus early approved by his Presbytery, he does not seem to have been in any haste to preach. He spent two sessions, after license, at the University of Edinburgh in the " study of mathematics and chemistry, and it was not until the 2d of November, 1802, that he was advanced to the pastorate of the parish of Kilmany. Before

that date he had been for a few months assistant to the minister of Cavers, but he did not reside in the parish, and satisfied his conscience with a weekly visit for the purpose of preaching the sermon that was required of him. Nor were things much better after his ordination. His ambition at that time was entirely academical. He had set his heart on becoming Professor of Mathematics in the University of St. Andrews, and during the first year of his ministry he officiated as assistant professor, doing all the work of the chair, and then repairing to Kilmany on the Saturday to go through the round of Sabbath duty, after which he returned to St. Andrews on the Monday morning. The second year the mathematical professor dispensed with his services-Chalmers thought from jealousy—and therefore he set up for himself as an extra-mural lecturer. But though he keenly felt what he believed to be a personal slight in the matter of the professorship, his conscience was no way sensitive, as yet, concerning the demands of the pastorate. He believed that after the satisfactory discharge of his parish duties he might have five days of the week uninterrupted for the prosecution of any scientific work to which his taste might incline him.

In short, he looked upon his ministerial labors as lighter things, to which he might devote the leisure which he could command from more important pursuits.

But a wonderful revolution from all this was soon to be effected. A speech delivered by him in the General Assembly of 1809, on the subject of the augmentation of the stipends of the clergy, attracted general attention for its ability, its humor, its "canniness," and its indications of genius and power, so that Andrew Thomson asked him to write for the Christian Instructor, and Brewster requested him to contribute to the Edinburgh Encyclopædia. For the latter of these publications he undertook to write the article "Christianity," and the preparation of that dissertation, following close upon a series of severe bereavements and a long and serious illness, in the course of which he had become deeply impressed with the importance of spiritual concerns, led to a change in his religious sentiments which, after his perusal of Wilberforce's "Practical View of Christianity," resulted in his conversion to Christ. From that moment his whole character and work were transfigured and glorified. He laid himself upon the altar, and the altar not only sanctified but