CHAPTER VI.

The Calton Hill—Burns's Monument—Character and Writings of "the Peasant Poet"—His Religious Views—Monument of Professor Dugald Stewart—Scottish Metaphysics—Thomas Carlyle.

Let us take a walk on the Calton Hill, this afternoon; we shall find some objects of interest there. At the termination of Prince's Street, commences Waterloo Place, in which are situated the Stamp Office, Post Office, Bridewell and the Jail. This also leads to Calton Hill, and is one of the most delightful promenades in the city. We skirt around the Hill, a little to the right, pass the beautiful and spacious buildings of the Edinburgh High School on the left, one of the best educational institutions in Scotland, continue our walk a short distance, and come to a round building on the farther declivity of the hill. That is "Burns's Monument." By giving a small douceur to the keeper, we are permitted to enter the interior, in the center of which stands a statue of the poet, by Flaxman. Beautiful and expressive certainly, as a work of art, but it is not quite equal to one's conception of the poet. The forehead is particularly fine—open, massive and high, with an air of lofty repose. The mouth is unpoetical and vulgar—at leastsomethingof this is visible in its expression. It wants the chiseled delicacy, as well as gracious expressionof noble and generous feeling which we naturally look for in the countenance of Burns. But the likeness, we understand, is defective. In his best days, Burns had a noble, and almost beautiful countenance. In stature he was about five feet ten inches, of great agility and muscular vigor. His countenance was open and ruddy, with a fine, frank, generous expression, eyes large and radiant, forehead arched and lofty, with curling hair clustering over it, and his mouth, especially when engaged in animated conversation, or lighted with a smile, wreathed with intelligence and good humor.

Burns has been termed "the Shakspeare of Scotland." And certainly no poet has ever been regarded, in that country, with such enthusiastic love and reverence. With all his faults, some of which were bad enough, all classes of the Scottish people, from the noble to the peasant, cherish him in their heart of hearts. Indeed he is a sort of national idol, to whom all feel bound to do reverence, notwithstanding his admitted failings. Nor is this a matter of surprise. For, taken as a whole, the poetry of Burns is the poetry of nature—of the heart—and especially of the Scottish heart. It represents the genius of the nation—wild, beautiful and free, shaded by thoughtfulness, and set off by devotion, at once merry as her mountain brooks, yet deep, strong and passionate as the stormy ocean which encircles her coast. "Tam O'Shanter," or "Halloween," the "Cotter's Saturday Night," or "Mary in Heaven," are the twoextremes of the picture. In Burns, Scotland saw incarnated her poetry and song, her music and passion, her love and devotion, her seriousness and merriment, her strong-hearted adherence to integrity and truth, her occasional recklessness and madness of spirit, her love of nature, her veneration for God. The grave and the gay, the old and the young, the religious and the reckless, all saw themselves represented in the glorious fragments of his witching poetry. Hence the enthusiasm with which his first volume of poems was received. It seemed as if a new realm had been added to the dominions of the British muse—a new and glorious creation fresh from the hand of nature. There the humor of Smollett, the pathos and tenderness of Sterne and Richardson, the real life of Fielding, and the description of Thomson, were all united in delineations of Scottish manners and scenery by the Ayrshire ploughman! The volume contained matter for all minds—for the lively and sarcastic, the wild and the thoughtful, the poetical enthusiast and the man of the world. So eagerly was the book sought after, that when copies of it could not be obtained, many of the poems were transcribed and sent round in manuscript among admiring circles. His songs are the songs of Scotland. A few have been furnished by Tannahill, Fergusson, Ramsay and others; but the main body of the most exquisite and most popular Scottish melodies are from the pen of Burns. Evermore they echo among her heathy hills and bosky dells. You hear them by the sides of her"bonnie burns," and along the shores of her silver lakes and "rivers grand." At evening gray, they are heard resounding from gowan'd braes and "birken shaws," in the shadow of haunted woods, and hoary ruins; and especially, on winter nights, and "tween and supper times" from her ten thousand happy "inglesides." In Burns's "Cotter's Saturday Night" are seen his reverence for religion "pure and undefiled," combined with exquisite description and melodious verse; in "Tam O'Shanter," his vivid fancy and dramatic energy; in "Halloween," his spirit of humor and fun; in his "Lines to a Mountain Daisy," his fine moral sense and tenderness of spirit; and in his "Address to Mary in Heaven," his true heartedness, and sweet lyric power. His native country is beautifully pictured in all his poetry. The "Banks of the Dee," "Edina's lofty seat," "Old Coila's hills and streams"—the "Braes of Yarrow"—"Allan Water"—"Bonnie Doon"—"Sweet Afton among her green braes"—"Auld hermit Ayr," "Stately Irwine," "The birks of Aberfeldy,"—where "summer blinks o'er flowery braes," the "lovely Nith, with fruitful vales and spreading hawthorns,"—"Gowrie's rich valley and Firth's sunny shores," "the clear winding Devon,"—"Castle Gordon,—where waters flow and wild woods rave,"—"the banks and braes and streams around the Castle of Montgomery,"—Bannockburn, Ellerslie and Sheriff Muir;—these, and a thousand other beautiful or storied scenes, mirror themselves in the stream of his sweet and varied verse.

Some vulgar and foolish things he has written; and we condemn them as heartily as others. But his poetry embodies much that is pure and beautiful and true, much of which Burns had no occasion to repent, even on a deathbed, and much of which his native country may well be proud. He was somewhat intemperate, but not to the extent which is generally supposed. Strong temptations,—the habits of the times—the folly of his friends, who thoughtlessly introduced him to the gaities of the metropolis, and then left him to contempt and penury, broke down his constitution, and consigned him to a premature grave. But he was not a man of base and vulgar passions. His was not the cold heart of the sceptic, nor the envenomed spirit of the villain. It was a wild and wayward heart, I grant, but honest and true, generous and kind. The temple was shattered by the lightnings of Heaven, but it was a temple still; and from its broken altars ever and anon ascended the sweet incense of prayer and praise. Burns could never forget his good old father, and the hallowed influences of religion, shed upon his young heart. He loved the Psalms of David, and the holy melodies of his native land; and we presume often sang them, of an evening, accompanied, as he himself intimates, with "the wild woodland note," of his beloved wife. Several of his letters to Miss Dunlop and others indicate a strong conviction of the Divine existence and the immortality of the soul, his struggles against the doubts which haunted his spirit, and his earnest longing for purity andperfection. "You may perhaps think it an extravagant fancy," he says in a letter to Mr. Aiken, "but it is a sentiment which strikes home to my very soul; though sceptical on some points of our current belief, yet I think, I have every evidence for the reality of a life beyond the stinted bourn of our present existence;" and then adds—"O thou great, unknown Power, thou Almighty God! who has lighted up reason in my breast, and blessed me with immortality! I have frequently wandered from that order and regularity necessary for the perfection of thy works, yet thou hast never left me nor forsaken me." Having expressed to Mrs. Dunlop his strong conviction of the immortality of the soul, he writes as follows, "I know not whether I have ever sent you the following lines, or if you have ever seen them; but it is one of my favorite quotations, which I keep constantly by me in my progress through life, in the language of the Book of Job,

"Against the day of battle and of war."—

spoken of religion:

"'Tisthismy friend that streaks our morning bright,'Tis this that gilds the horror of our night.When wealth forsakes us, and when friends are few;When friends are faithless, or when foes pursue;'Tis this that wards the blow, or stills the smart,Disarms affliction, or repels her dart;Within the breast bids purest raptures rise.Bids smiling Conscience spread her cloudless skies."

One of the most beautiful letters ever written by Burns has reference to this subject, and wasaddressed to the same lady, on New Year's day.—"This, dear Madam, is a morning of wishes; and would to God that I came under the Apostle James's description!—'the prayer of the righteous man availeth much.' In that case, Madam, you should welcome in a year full of blessings: everything that obstructs or disturbs tranquillity and self-enjoyment should be removed, and every pleasure that frail humanity can taste should be yours. I own myself so little a Presbyterian, that I approve of set times and seasons of more than ordinary acts of devotion for breaking in on that habitual routine of life and thought, which is so apt to reduce our existence to a kind of instinct, or even sometimes, and with some minds, to a state very little superior to mere machinery.

"This day, the first Sunday of May, a breezy, blue skyed noon, sometime about the beginning, and a hoary morning and calm sunny day about the end of Autumn,—these, time out of mind, have been with me a kind of holy day. * * * * I believe I owe this to that glorious paper in the Spectator, "The Vision of Mirza;" a piece that struck my young fancy before I was capable of fixing an idea to a word of three syllables. 'On the fifth day of the moon, which, according to the custom of my forefathers, I alwayskeep holy, after having washed myself, and offered up my morning devotions, I ascended the high hill of Bagdad, in order to pass the rest of the day in meditation and prayer.'

"We know nothing, or next to nothing of thesubstance or structure of our souls, so cannot account for those seeming caprices in them, that one should be particularly pleased with this thing, or struck with that, which, on minds of a different cast, makes no extraordinary impression. I have some favorite flowers in spring, among which are the mountain daisy, the harebell, the foxglove, the wild brier rose, the budding birch, and the hoary hawthorn, that I view and hang over with particular delight. I never heard the loud solitary whistle of the curlew in a summer noon, or the wild, mixing cadence of a troop of gray plover in an autumnal morning, without feeling an elevation of soul like the enthusiasm of devotion or poetry. Tell me, my dear friend, to what can this be owing? Are we a piece of machinery, which like the Æolian harp, passive, takes the impression of the passing accident? Or do these workings argue something within us above the trodden clod? I own myself partial to such proofs of those awful and important realities—a God that made all things—man's immaterial and immortal nature—and a world of weal or woe beyond death and the grave."

A fit comment on this and other passages of similar import in his letters is the following affecting poem, entitled "A Prayer in the Prospect of Death." It seems to us to utter the deep throbbings of the poet's spirit:

"Why am I loth to leave this earthly scene?Have I so found it full of pleasing charms?Some drops of joy, with draughts of ill between;Some gleams of sunshine 'mid renewing storms;Is it departing pangs my soul alarms?Or death's unlovely, dreary, dark abode?For guilt, for guilt, my terrors are in arms;I tremble to approach an angry God,And justly smart beneath his sin avenging rod.Fain would I say, 'forgive my foul offence!'Fain promise never more to disobey;But should my Author health again dispense,Again I might desert fair virtue's way;Again in folly's path might go astray;Again exalt the brute and sink the man.Then how should I for heavenly mercy pray;Who act so counter heavenly mercy's plan,Who sin so oft have mourn'd, yet to temptation ran?O thou great Governor of all below,If I may dare a lifted eye to Thee,Thy nod can make the tempest cease to blow,Or still the tumult of the raging sea;With that controling power assist ev'n me,Those headlong furious passions to confine,For all unfit I feel my powers to be,To rule their torrent in the allowed line;O aid me with thy help, Omnipotence Divine!"

Fain would I say, 'forgive my foul offence!'Fain promise never more to disobey;But should my Author health again dispense,Again I might desert fair virtue's way;Again in folly's path might go astray;Again exalt the brute and sink the man.Then how should I for heavenly mercy pray;Who act so counter heavenly mercy's plan,Who sin so oft have mourn'd, yet to temptation ran?

O thou great Governor of all below,If I may dare a lifted eye to Thee,Thy nod can make the tempest cease to blow,Or still the tumult of the raging sea;With that controling power assist ev'n me,Those headlong furious passions to confine,For all unfit I feel my powers to be,To rule their torrent in the allowed line;O aid me with thy help, Omnipotence Divine!"

After writing thus far, we read for the first time, "The Genius and Character of Burns," by Professor Wilson, the richest garland yet wreathed around the poet's brow; and we are happy to find the views expressed above fully corroborated by that distinguished writer. It is true that Wilson delineates the character of Burns with enthusiastic admiration; but his views are so discriminating, and withal backed by such an array of facts, that no candid man can deny their correctness. We cannot therefore resist the temptation of making the following extract, in which the finest discriminationis blended with the largest charity. Long may the Literature of Scotland be guarded by such a critic! But one thing must not be forgotten here, namely, that no one, and especially one personally unacquainted with Burns, can pronounce in regard to his actual spiritual state. Whether he was truly 'born of God,' and notwithstanding the errors of his life, died a Christian and went to heaven, is happily not a question which we are called to decide.

"We have said but little hitherto of Burns's religion. Some have denied that he had any religion at all—a rash and cruel denial—made in the face of his genius, his character, and his life. What man in his senses ever lived without religion? "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God"—was Burns an atheist? We do not fear to say that he was religious far beyond the common run of men, even them who may have had a more consistent and better considered creed. The lessons he received in the "auld clay biggin" were not forgotten through life. He speaks—and we believe him—of his "early ingrained piety" having been long remembered to good purpose—what he called his "idiot piety"—not meaning thereby to disparage it, but merely that it was in childhood an instinct. "Our Father which art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name!" is breathed from the lips of infancy with the same feeling at its heart that beats towards its father on earth, as it kneels in prayer by his side. No one surely will doubt his sincerity when he writes from Irvine to his father—"Honor'dsir—I am quite transported at the thought, that ere long, perhaps soon, I shall bid an eternal adieu to all the pains, and uneasinesses, and disquietudes of this weary life; for I assure you I am heartily tired of it, and, if I do not very much deceive myself, I could contentedly and gladly resign it. It is for this reason I am more pleased with the 15th, 16th, and 17th verses of the 7th chapter of Revelations, than with any ten times as many verses in the whole Bible, and would not exchange the noble enthusiasm with which they inspire me, for all that this world has to offer. '15. Therefore are they before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple; and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. 16. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. 17. For the Lamb that is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters; and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.'" When he gives lessons to a young man for his conduct in life, one of them is, "The great Creator to adore;" when he consoles a friend on the death of a relative, "he points the brimful grief-worn eyes to scenes beyond the grave;" when he expresses benevolence to a distressed family, he beseeches the aid of Him "who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb;" when he feels the need of aid to control his passions, he implores that of the "Great Governor of all below;" when in sickness, he has a prayer for the pardon of all his errors, and an expression of confidencein the goodness of God; when suffering from the ills of life, he asks for the grace of resignation, "because they are thy will;" when he observes the sufferings of the virtuous, he remembers a rectifying futurity;—he is religious not only when surprised by occasions such as these, but also on set occasions; he had regular worship in his family while at Ellisland—we know not how it was at Dumfries, but we do know that there he catechised his children every Saturday evening;—Nay, he does not enter a Druidical circle without a prayer to God.

He viewed the Creator chiefly in his attributes of love, goodness and mercy. "In proportion as we are wrung with grief, or distracted with anxiety, the ideas of a superintending Deity, an Almighty protector, are doubly dear." Him he never lost sight of, or confidence in, even in the depths of his remorse. An avenging God was too seldom in his contemplations—from the little severity in his own character—from a philosophical view of the inscrutable causes of human frailty—and most of all, from a diseased aversion to what was so much the theme of the sour Calvanism around him; but which would have risen up an appalling truth in such a soul as his, had it been habituated to profounder thought on the mysterious corruption of our fallen nature.

Sceptical thoughts as to revealed religion had assailed his mind, while with expanding powers it "communed with the glorious universe;" and in 1787 he writes from Edinburgh to a "Mr. James M'Candlish, student in physic, College, Glasgow,"who had favored him with a long argumentative infidel letter, "I, likewise, since you and I were first acquainted, in the pride of despising old women's stories, ventured on 'the daring path Spinoza trod;' but experience of the weakness, not the strength of human powers,made me glad to grasp at revealed religion." When at Ellisland, he writes to Mrs. Dunlop, "My idle reasonings sometimes make me a little sceptical, but the necessities of my heart always give the cold philosophizings the lie. Who looks for the heart weaned from earth; the soul affianced to her God; the correspondence fixed with heaven; the pious supplication and devout thanksgiving, constant as the vicissitudes of even and morn; who thinks to meet with these in the court, the palace, in the glare of public life! No: to find them in their precious importance and divine efficacy, we must search among the obscure recesses of disappointment, affliction, poverty and distress." And again, next year, from the same place to the same correspondent, "That there is an incomprehensibly Great Being, to whom I owe my existence, and that he must be intimately acquainted with the operations and progress of the internal machinery, and consequent outward deportment of this creature he has made—these are, I think, self-evident propositions. That there is a real and eternal distinction between vice and virtue, and consequently, that I am an accountable creature; that from the seeming nature of the human mind, as well as from the evident imperfection, nay positive injustice, in the administrationof affairs, both in the natural and moral worlds, there must be a retributive scene of existence beyond the grave, must, I think, be allowed by every one who will give himself a moment's reflection. I will go farther and affirm, that from the sublimity, excellence, and purity of his doctrine and precepts, unparalleled, by all the aggregated wisdom and learning of many preceding ages, thoughto appearancehe was himself the obscurest and most illiterate of our species: therefore Jesus was from God." Indeed, all his best letters to Mrs. Dunlop are full of the expression of religious feeling and religious faith; though it must be confessed with pain, that he speaks with more confidence in the truth of natural than of revealed religion, and too often lets sentiments inadvertently escape him, that, taken by themselves, would imply that his religious belief was but a Christianized Theism. Of the immortality of the soul, he never expresses any serious doubt, though now and then, his expressions, though beautiful, want their usual force, as if he felt the inadequacy of the human mind to the magnitude of the theme. "Ye venerable sages, and holy flamens, is there probability in your conjectures, truth in your stories, of another world beyond death; or are they all alike baseless visions and fabricated fables? If there is another life, it must be only for the just, the amiable, and the humane. What a flattering idea this of the world to come! Would to God I as firmly believed it as I ardently wish it."

How, then, could honored Thomas Carlyle bringhimself to affirm, "that Burns had no religion?" His religion was in much imperfect—but its incompleteness you discern only on a survey of all his effusions, and by inference; for his particular expressions of a religious kind are genuine, and as acknowledgments of the superabundant goodness and greatness of God, they are in unison with the sentiments of the devoutest Christian. But remorse never suggests to him the inevitable corruption of man; Christian humility he too seldom dwells on, though without it there cannot be Christian faith: and he is silent on the need of reconcilement between the divine attributes of Justice and Mercy. The absence of all this might pass unnoticed, were not the religious sentiment so prevalent in his confidential communications with his friends in his most serious and solemn moods. In them there is frequent, habitual recognition of the Creator; and who that finds joy and beauty in nature has not the same? It may be well supposed that if common men are more ideal in religion than in other things, so would be Burns. He who has lent the colors of his fancy to common things, would not withhold them from divine. Something—he knew not what—he would exact of man—more impressively reverential than anything he is wont to offer to God, or perhaps can offer in the way of institution—in temples made with hands. Theheartfeltadoration always has a grace for him—in the silent bosom—in the lonely cottage—in any place where circumstances are a pledge of its reality; but the moment it ceases to beheartfelt, and visiblyso, it loses his respect, it seems as profanation. "Mine is the religion of the breast;" and if it be not, what is it worth? But it must also revive a right spirit within us; and there may be gratitude for goodness, without such change as is required of us in the gospel. He was too buoyant with immortal spirit within him not to credit its immortal destination; he was too thoughtful in his human love not to feel how different must be our affections if they are towards flowers which the blast of death may wither, or towards spirits which are but beginning to live in our sight, and are gathering good and evil here for an eternal life. Burns believed that by his own unassisted understanding, and his own unassisted heart, he saw and felt those great truths, forgetful of this great truth, that he had been taught them in the Written Word. Had all he learned in the "auld clay biggin" become a blank—all the knowledge inspired into his heart during the evenings, when "the sire turned o'er wi' patriarchal air, the big ha'-bible, ance his father's pride," how little or how much would he then have known of God and Immortality? In that delusion he shared more or less with one and all—whether poets or philosophers—who have put their trust in natural Theology. As to the glooms in which his sceptical reason had been involved, they do not seem to have been so thick—so dense—as in the case of men without number, who have, by the blessing of God, become true Christians. Of his levities on certain celebrations of religious rites, we before ventured an explanation; andwhile it is to be lamented that he did not more frequently dedicate the genius that shed so holy a lustre over "The Cotter's Saturday Night," to the service of religion, let it be remembered how few poets have done so—alas! too few—that he, like his tuneful brethren, must often have been deterred by a sense of his own unworthiness from approaching its awful mysteries—and above all, that he was called to his account before he had attained his thoughtful prime."

Speaking of Burns's last sickness, Professor Wilson says: "But he had his Bible with him in his lodgings, and he read it almost continually—often when seated on a bank, from which he had difficulty in rising without assistance, for his weakness was extreme, and in his emaciation he was like a ghost. The fire of his eye was not dimmed—indeed fever had lighted it up beyond even its natural brightness; and though his voice, once so various, was now hollow, his discourse was still that of a Poet. To the last he loved the sunshine, the grass, and the flowers; to the last he had a kind look and word for the passers-by, who all knew it was Burns. Laboring men, on their way from work, would step aside to the two or three houses called the Brow, to know if there was any hope of his life; and it is not to be doubted that devout people remembered him, who had written the Cotter's Saturday Night, in their prayers. His sceptical doubts no longer troubled him; they had never been more than shadows; and he had at last the faith of a confiding Christian."

Leaving Burns's Monument, we ascend the hill, in the opposite direction, pass the unfinished Parthenon, consisting only of a few elegant columns, and intended to commemorate the battle of Waterloo, the Observatory, and the Monument of Professor Playfair, the celebrated mathematician and astronomer, and reach the elegant though not imposing monument of Professor Dugald Stewart, not the most acute, but certainly the most finished and instructive of all the writers of the Scottish metaphysical school. Let us linger here, a few moments, for the name of Professor Stewart is peculiarly dear to Scotland. No man was ever more enthusiastically regarded by his pupils, or more generally loved and revered by the community. Dr. Reid of Glasgow University, the immediate predecessor and preceptor of Stewart, was a man of an acute and original mind, though not possessed of half the grace and fluency of his illustrious pupil. It was Reid however that first gave clearness and method to the metaphysics of Scotland. His writings on first principles, or, as he called them, principles of Common Sense, gave a death-blow, at least in Scotland, to theideal theoryof Berkeley and Hume, and greatly affected the course of philosophical investigation not only in England but in France. In fact, his philosophy supplanted, for a time, the infidel metaphysics of Hume and the French rationalists. It cut the roots equally of idealism and sensualism, and was eagerly received by thoughtful men in Europe and in this country. It can be seen running like a sunbeam, through thespeculations of Royer Collard, Constant, Jouffroy and even of Cousin. Based on the Baconian method, it proceeded, modestly and unostentatiously, to ascertain, and then to classify the facts of mind; and, because it projected no splendid theories, or blazing fancies, it has been rejected by superficial and visionary thinkers, with some degree of contempt. After all, it may yet be recognized, by all genuine philosophers, as the only true scientific method. In the hands of Stewart and of Brown, his colleague and successor, it began to assume a lofty and attractive position; but alas! it has remained stationary for the want of strong and true-hearted defenders. Stigmatized by the Germans as "pallid and insular—timid and cold," it has been forsaken, of late, by the more popular metaphysical writers, for the brilliant and astounding, but ever varying visions of the Transcendental School. Smitten with the love of Ontology, or the doctrine of "the absolute and the essential," scorning the methods of Bacon and Newton as empirical and shallow, and setting their foot on the modest, perhaps timid speculations of Reid and Stewart, metaphysicians have plunged one after another into the abyss of an absolute Spiritualism, where, amid the glimmerings of a half-dark and lurid radiance, may be seen the disciples of Kant and Fichte, Hegel and Schelling, floundering in the gloom, changing places continually, now rising towards the light of heaven, and then sinking in the "abysmal dark."

The writings of Reid, Stewart and Brown have exerted a great influence on the thinking of Scotland, which, even among the common people, has a somewhat metaphysical turn. Combining with religion and poetry, it has given to both a peculiar depth and earnestness of tone. In some it is deeply practical, in others speculative and visionary.

Thomas Carlyle, the product chiefly of Scotland, but partly also of Germany—or perhaps, rather, a magnificent "lusus naturæ," has a large amount of Scottish shrewdness, enthusiasm and speculation, overlaid and burnished with German spiritualism and romance. A native of Annandale, and imbued with the religion of the Covenant, and the poetry of the hills, he has wandered off into the fields of metaphysical speculation, where, amid dreams of gorgeous and beautiful enchantment, he is evermore uttering his burning oracular words, of half pagan, and half Christian, wisdom. A genuineTeufelsdröckh,—he is yet a genuineScot, and cannot therefore forget the holy wisdom of his venerable mother, and his Annandale home.[16]

Preaching in Edinburgh—The Free Church—Dr. Chalmers—A Specimen of his Preaching—The Secret of his Eloquence.

Edinburgh has ever been distinguished for its preachers. In former times the classic Blair, the fervid Walker, the impassioned Logan, the judicious Erskine, the learned Jamieson, the exquisite Alison, the candid Wellwood and the energetic Thomson delighted and instructed all classes of the community. To these have succeeded a host of learned and truly eloquent men, some of whom are members of "the Kirk," others of the Episcopal communion, and others of the various bodies of Presbyterian "Seceders," Congregationalists and Baptists. Among the clergymen of the Free Church, Dr. Chalmers of course is "facile princeps;" Dr. Candlish, in effectiveness and popularity probably stands next, while Drs. Cunningham, Bruce, Gordon and Buchanan, the Rev. James Begg, and one or two others form a cluster of influential and eloquent preachers. Among the Congregationalists, Rev. William L. Alexander is the most learned and polished. He has written ably on the Tractarian controversy and on the connection of the Old and New Testaments, and recently received a pressing invitation to become associated with Dr. Wardlaw of Glasgow, as assistant pastor andProfessor of Theology. He is a fine looking man, being some six feet high, with expressive features, dark penetrating eyes, and massive black hair, clustering over a fair and lofty forehead. His manner is dignified and agreeable, but not particularly impassioned.

Among the "seceding" Presbyterians, Dr. John Brown, minister of Broughton Place, and one of the Professors of Theology in the United Secession Church, the Rev. Dr. Johnstone and the Rev. James Robertson of the same communion are among the most effective preachers in Scotland. The Baptists are justly proud of the learned and polished Christopher Anderson, author of an able work on the "Domestic Constitution," and an elaborate "History of the English Bible"—the Rev. William Innes, one of the most amiable and pious of men, and the Rev. Jonathan Watson, whose earnest practical discourses are well appreciated by his intelligent audience. Mr. Innes at one time was a minister of the established Church, with a large salary and an agreeable situation, but abandoned it for conscience' sake, as he could not approve of the union of Church and State, nor of some of the peculiarities of Presbyterianism. His pious, consistent course, and liberal, catholic spirit, have won for him the admiration of all denominations of Christians.

Bishop Terrot of the Episcopal Church is somewhat high in his church notions, but is regarded as an amiable and learned man, while the Rev. Mr. Drummond and others of the same church,are able and influential preachers. Among those who adhere to "the Kirk" as it was, the Rev. Dr. Muir is one of the most accomplished, and the Rev. Dr. Lee, of the University, the most learned and influential.

Taken as a whole, the Edinburgh clergy are fair representatives of the Scottish preachers generally. Those therefore who wish to form a just estimate of the spirit and power of the pulpit in Scotland, have only to hear them repeatedly, in their respective places of worship. They hold doctrinal views somewhat diverse, though essentially one, adopt different styles of preaching, and in certain aspects different styles of life. Yet they manifestly belong to the same great family, and preach the same glorious gospel. They are remarkably distinguished for their strong common sense, laborious habits, pious spirit and practical usefulness. Occasionally they come into keen polemical strife; but it amounts to little more than a gladiatorial exhibition, or rather a light skirmishing, without malice prepense, or much evil result. Generally speaking, they are not pre-eminently distinguished for their learning, though certainly well informed, and devoted to the great work of their ministry. They are more practical than speculative, more devout than critical, more useful than renowned. They live in the hearts of their flocks, and the results of their labors may be seen in the integrity, good order and industry of the people. It is not our purpose to say much on the subject of the recent "break" in the Scottish church, in which, as the members of the "Free Church" assert, the supremacyof Jesus Christ is concerned. The intrusion by lay patrons, of unpopular ministers upon the churches, is certainly a vicious practice, and ought to be abolished. But this is only a fragment of a greater and more vital question, pertaining to the spirituality and authority of Christ's church, which must be settled one of these days. The Free Church movement has developed much fine enthusiasm, and no small amount of self-denial; and the results will doubtless be favorable to the progress of spiritual freedom; but this is only a single wave of a mighty and ever increasing tide, which is destined to sweep, not over Scotland alone, but over the world. In this place, however, we cannot refrain from expressing our conviction that this division in the Presbyterian ranks is not properly a schism or a heresy. It breaks up an existing organization, but affinity remains. The doctrines and discipline of the two churches are essentially the same. The one may be purer and stronger than the other, but they are members of the same family, professedly cherish the same spirit, and aim at the accomplishment of the same ends. This, too, may be said of nearly all the other sects; so that in Scotland, there is more real unity among Christians than there is in Papal Rome. The latter is one, only as a mountain of ice, in which all impurities are congealed, is one. The unity of the former is like that of the thousand streams which rush from the Alpine heights, proceeding, as they do, from a common source, and finally meeting and blending in a common ocean.

But enough of general speculation and description. Dr. Chalmers is to preach at Dr. Candlish's church, so let us go to hear him. He has lost something of his early vigor, but retains enough of it to make him the most interesting preacher in Scotland or the world. Let us make haste, or we shall fail of obtaining a seat. Already the house is filled with an expectant congregation. The Doctor comes in, and all is hushed. He is dressed in gown and bands, and presents a striking and venerable appearance. His serious, earnest aspect well befits his high office. He is of the middle height, thick set and brawny, but not corpulent. His face is rather broad, with high cheek bones, pale, and as it were care-worn, but well formed and expressive. His eyes are of a leaden color, rather dull when in a state of repose, but flashing with a half-smothered fire when fairly roused. His nose is broad and lion-like, his mouth, one of the most expressive parts of his countenance, firm, a little compressed and stern, indicating courage and energy, while his forehead is ample and high, as one might naturally suppose, covered with thin, straggling grey hair. He reads a psalm in a dry, guttural voice—reads a few verses of Scripture, without much energy or apparent feeling, and then offers a brief, simple, earnest, and striking prayer. By the way, the Doctor's prayers are among his most interesting exercises. He is always simple, direct, reverent, and occasionally quite original and striking. You feel while joining in his devotions, that a man of genius and piety isleading your willing spirit up to the throne of God. How striking, for example, when he calls us to remember "that every hour that strikes,—every morning that dawns, and every evening that darkens around us, brings us nearer to the end of our pilgrimage." Yet he has no mouthing or mannerism, in this solemn exercise. He is notmaking, but offering a prayer. His tones are earnest and solemn; most manifest it is that his soul is holding intimate fellowship with the Father of Spirits.

But he announces his text—1 John iv. 16. "God is love"—a text from which he has preached before; but no matter for that.[17]He commences, with a few broken sentences, pronounced in a harsh tuneless voice, with a strong Scottish accent. The first feeling of a stranger would be that of disappointment, and apprehension that the discourse was to prove a failure. This was the case with Canning and Wilberforce, who went to hear Dr. Chalmers, when he preached in London. They had got into a pew near the door, when "the preacher began in his usual unpromising way, by stating a few nearly self-evident propositions, neither in the choicest language, nor in the most impressive voice; 'If this be all,' said Canning to his companion, 'it will never do.' Chalmers went on,—the shuffling in the congregation gradually subsided. He got into themass of his subject; his weakness became strength, his hesitation was turned into energy; and bringing the whole volume of his mind to bear upon it, poured forth a torrent of most close and conclusive argument, brilliant with all the exuberance of an imagination which ranged over all nature for illustrations, and yet managed and applied each of them with the same unerring dexterity, as if that single one had been the study of his whole life. 'The tartan beats us,' said Mr. Canning, 'we have no preaching like that in England.'"

It may be well to state here that Chalmers is a slavish reader,—that is, he reads every thing he says,—but then he reads so naturally, so earnestly, so energetically, that manuscript and everything else is speedily forgotten by the astonished and delighted hearer.

He proceeds with his subject—God is love. His object, as announced, is not so much to elucidate the thought or idea of the text, as to dislodge from the minds of his hearers, the dread and aversion for God, existing in all unregenerate men. He insists, in the first place, that it is not as a God of love, that the Deity is regarded by mankind—but simply as God, as a being mysterious and dreadful, a being who has displeasure towards them in his heart. This arises from two causes—the first, that they are ignorant of this great and awfully mysterious Being—the second, that they have sinned against him. This feeling then is displaced first by the incarnation of the Deity in the person of his Son, so that we may know him and lovehim as a Father and a friend; and secondly, by the free pardon of our sin, through the sacrifice of the Cross. The division is rather awkward; but it serves the purpose of the preacher, who thus brings out some of the most sublime peculiarities of the Gospel, and applies them with overwhelming force and pathos to the sinner's heart. Under the first head, he shows, in language of uncommon energy, that it is impossible for man, in his present state, to regard a being so vast, so mysterious, and so little known as God, except with superstitious dread. "All regarding him," says he, "is inscrutable; the depths of his past eternity, the mighty and unknown extent of his creation, the secret policy or end of his government—a government that embraces an infinity of worlds, and reaches forward to an infinity of ages; all these leave a being so circumscribed in his faculties as man, so limited in his duration, and therefore so limited in his experience, in profoundest ignorance of God; and then the inaccessible retirement in which this God hides himself from the observation of his creatures here below, the clouds and darkness which are about the pavilion of his throne, the utter inability of the powers of man to reach beyond the confines of that pavilion, render vain all attempts to fathom the essence of God, or to obtain any distinct conception of his person or being, which have been shrouded in the deep silence of many centuries, insomuch that nature, whatever it may tell us of his existence, places between our senses and this mighty cause a veil of interception."

It is not unnatural to dread such a being. Nature, though full of God, furnishes no clear and satisfying evidence of his designs; for sunshine and shower, green fields and waving harvests are intermingled with tempests and hurricane, blight and mildew, destruction and death. "While in one case we have the natural affection and unnumbered sweets of many a cottage, which might serve to manifest the indulgent kindness of him who is the universal parent of the human family; we have on the other hand the cares, the heart-burnings, the moral discomforts, often the pining sickness, or the cold and cheerless poverty, or, more palpably, the fierce contests and mutual distractions even among civilized men; and lastly, and to consummate all, the death,—the unshaken and relentless death with which generation after generation, whether among the abodes of the prosperous and the happy, or among the dwellings of the adverse and unfortunate, after a few years are visited, laying all the varieties of human fortune in the dust,—these all bespeak if not a malignant, an offended, God."

But this vague uncertainty and dread are corrected and displaced by the incarnation of the Deity in the person of Christ—"the brightness of the Father's glory and the express image of his person." "The Godhead then became palpable to human senses, and man could behold, as in a picture, and in distinct personification, the very characteristics of the Being that made him."

Upon this idea, a favorite one with Dr. Chalmers, he dwells with the profoundest interest, presentingit with a strength of conception and exuberance of illustration which makes it clear and palpable to the minds of all. How his heart glows, almost to bursting, with the sublime and thrilling idea that God is manifest in the flesh. How he pours out, as in a torrent of light, the swelling images and emotions of his throbbing spirit. "We could not scale the height of that mysterious ascent which brings us within view of the Godhead. It is by the descent of the Godhead unto us that this manifestation has been made; and we learn and know it from the wondrous history of him who went about doing good continually. We could not go in search of the viewless Deity, through the depths and vastnesses of infinity, or divine the secret, the untold purposes that were brooding there. But in what way could a more palpable exhibition have been made, than when the eternal Son, enshrined in humanity, stepped forth on the platform of visible things, and there proclaimed the Deity? We can now reach the character of God in the human looks, in the human language of Him who is the very image and visible representative of the Deity; we see it in the tears of sympathy he shed; we hear it in the accents of tenderness which fell from his lips. Even his very remonstrances were those of a deep and gentle nature; for they are remonstrances of deepest pathos—the complaints of a longing spirit against the sad perversity of men bent on their own ruin."

Not content with this clear and ample exhibition of his views, he returns to it, as if with redoubledinterest, and though presenting no new conception upon the point, delights to pour upon it the exuberant radiance of his teeming imagination. The hearers, too, are as interested as he, and catch with delight the varying aspects of his peculiar oratory. In fact, their minds are in perfect sympathy and harmony with his; and tears start to every eye, as he bursts out, as if applying the subject to himself, in the following beautiful and affecting style:—"Previous to this manifestation, as long as I had nothing before me but the unseen God, my mind wandered in uncertainty, my busy fancy was free to expatiate, and its images filled my heart with disquietude and terror; but in the life and person and history of Jesus Christ, the attributes of the Deity are brought down to the observation of the senses, and I can no longer mistake them, when, in the Son, who is the express image of his Father, I see them carried home to my understanding by the evidence and expression of human organs—when I see the kindness of the Father, in the tears that fell from the Son at the tomb of Lazarus—when I see his justice blended with his mercy, in the exclamation, 'O Jerusalem, Jerusalem!' by Jesus Christ, uttered with a tone more tender than human bosom or human sympathy ever uttered—I feel the judgment of God himself flashing conviction on my conscience, and calling me to repent, while his wrath is suspended, and he still waiteth to be gracious!"

But a more distinct and well-grounded reason for distrust and fear in reference to the Deity arisesfrom the consciousness of guilt. In spite of ourselves, in spite of our false theology, we feel that God has a right to be offended with us, that he is offended with us, and not only so, but that we deserve his displeasure. This he shows is counteracted by the doctrine of the atonement: "Herein is love, not that we loved him, but that he loved us, and sent his Son into the world to be a propitiation for our sins." By the fact of the incarnation, a conquest is gained over the imagination haunted with the idea of an unknown God; so also by that of the atonement, a conquest is gained over the solid and well-grounded fear of guilt. This idea the Doctor illustrates with equal force and beauty, showing that by means of the Sacrifice of the Cross, justice and mercy are brought into harmony, in the full and free pardon of the believing penitent. By this means the great hindrance to free communion with God is taken away. Guilt is cancelled, for the sake of Him who died, and the poor trembling sinner is taken to the bosom of Infinite Love. "In the glorious spectacle of the Cross, we see the mystery revealed, and the compassion of the parent meeting in fullest harmony with the now asserted and now vindicated prerogative of the Lawgiver. The Gospel is a halo of all the attributes of God, and yet the pre-eminent manifestation there is of God as love, which will shed its lustre amid all the perfections of the Divine nature. And here it should be specially remarked, that the atonement was made for the sins of the whole world; God's direct and primary object being to vindicate the truth andjustice of the Godhead. Instead of taking from his love, it only gave it more emphatic demonstration; for, instead of love, simple and bending itself without difficulty to the happiness of its objects, it was a love which, ere it could reach the guilty being it groaned after, had to force the barriers of a necessity which, to all human appearance, was insuperable." With this fine idea the Doctor concludes his discourse, presenting it with a mingled tenderness and vehemence of style and tone perfectly irresistible. "The love of God," he exclaims, "with such an obstacle and trying to get over it, is a higher exhibition than all the love which radiates from his throne on all the sinless angels. The affirmation that God is love, is strengthened by that other, to him who owns the authority of Scripture, that Godsoloved the world—I call on you to mark the emphaticso—as to give his only-begotten Son. 'He spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all;' or that expression, 'herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and gave his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.' There is a moral, a depth, an intensity of meaning, a richness of sentiment that Paul calls unsearchable, in the Cross of Christ, that tells emphatically that God is righteousness, and that God is love."

Such is a feeble and imperfect outline of a rich and eloquent discourse, from one of the richest and most expressive texts in the Bible. But we cannot transfer to the written or printed page the tone, look and manner, thevivida vis, the natural and overwhelming energy, the pathos and power oftone, which thrill the hearer as with the shocks of a spiritual electricity. It is this peculiar energy which distinguishes Chalmers, and which distinguishes all great orators. His mind is on fire with his subject, and transfers itself all glowing to the minds of his hearers. For the time being all are fused into one great whole, by the resistless might of his burning eloquence. In this respect Chalmers has been thought to approach, nearer than any other man of modern times, the style and tone of Demosthenes. His manner has a torrent-vehemence, a sea-like swell and sweep, a bannered tramp as of armies rushing to deadly conflict. With one hand on his manuscript, and the other jerked forward with electric energy, he thunders out his gigantic periods, as if winged with "volleyed lightning." The hearers are astonished,—awed,—carried away,—lifted up as on the wings of the wind, and borne "whithersoever the master listeth."

Biographical Sketch of Dr. Chalmers.

As an evangelical divine, a preacher of great strength and earnestness, a man of a truly devout and generous spirit, of great independence, energy and perseverance, a leader of the Free Church of Scotland, and a successful advocate of the doctrine of Christ's supremacy, Dr. Chalmers may be regarded as a fair embodiment of the religious spirit of his native land. In his mode of thinking, in his doctrinal belief and practice, especially in his devout and fervid eloquence, the Doctor is eminently Scottish. His whole spirit is bathed in the piety of "the Covenant." On this account a brief sketch of his history will not be inappropriate in this place.

Thomas Chalmers, D. D., was born about the year 1780, in the town of Anstruther in Fifeshire, the birth-place of another man of genius, Professor Tennant, of St. Andrews, the celebrated author of "Anster Fair," one of the most facetious poems in the language, and making a near approach to the dramatic energy of "Tam O'Shanter." Young Chalmers gave decided indications of genius and energy, and was sent to the College of St. Andrews, and soon became "a mathematician, a natural philosopher, and though there was no regularprofessor of that science at St. Andrews, a chemist." After having been licensed as a preacher, he officiated for sometime, as assistant minister, at Cavers in Roxburghshire. He was subsequently called to the care of the parish church in Kilmany, beautifully situated "amid the green hills and smiling valleys," of his native county. He was ordained on the 12th of May, 1803, and soon displayed the vigor and activity of his mind. In addition to his regular parochial engagements, he devoted much attention to botany and chemistry; lectured on the latter science and kindred subjects in the neighboring towns; became an officer in a volunteer corps; assisted the late Professor Vilant in teaching the mathematical class in the College of St. Andrews; on the succeeding session opened a private class of his own, on the same branch of science, to which all the students flocked; and wrote one or two books, and several pamphlets on the topics of the day. His first publication appeared at Cupar in Fife on what was called the Leslie Controversy. It was written in the form of a letter addressed to Professor Playfair; and abounds in talent, wit and humor. It was published anonymously, and for a long time was not known to be his. He vindicates in it very powerfully, the divines of the Church of Scotland, from the imputation of a want of mathematical talent, a reproach which he thought Professor Playfair had thrown upon them. He also wrote a volume on the resources of the country, which attracted much attention, as a work of ability and eloquence.

From these statements it must be evident that Dr. Chalmers had but little time to devote to the spiritual interests of his parish. He performed hisstatedduties, it is true, but devoted his energies chiefly to literary and scientific pursuits. Indeed he was in religious belief a rationalist, and had not yet adopted those profound and spiritual convictions which subsequently formed the main-spring of his ministry. In 1805 he offered himself as a candidate for the vacant chair of Mathematics in the University of Edinburgh, with considerable chances of success, but afterwards withdrew his name at the earnest solicitation of his friends, who wished to retain him in the Church.

When Dr. Brewster's Edinburgh Encyclopedia was projected Dr. Chalmers was engaged as one of the contributors, and wrote the article "Christianity," which was subsequently published in a separate form. It was about this time that his mind underwent a radical change on the subject of vital religion. He discovered the utter inefficiency of a utilitarian morality, for the renovation and guidance of man, and eagerly embraced those peculiar views of evangelical faith, which recognize the sacrifice and intercession of Christ as a ground of hope to the fallen, the necessity of "being born of the Spirit," and the ineffable beauty and blessedness of "a life hid with Christ in God." It is said that this change took place while writing the article referred to; he then felt the necessity of acting upon his own principles, of yielding his heart absolutely and forever, to the truths of that Revelation, the realityand authority of which he was called to prove. It will be remembered by those acquainted with the article in question, that he takes the ground that a divine revelation must necessarily be mysterious; that coming from God, it must belong to the infinite and the obscure, and thus contain many things which shock our preconceptions,—thata prioriobjections to its doctrines are therefore null and void, and that the whole must be received, without exception or modification. He insists that while we have experience of man, we have little or no experience of God, that the thoughts of such a Being must infinitely transcend ours, and in all probability contradict ours, especially with reference to the great problem touching the salvation of the guilty. If then the genuineness and authenticity of the sacred books can be proved as historical facts, we have nothing to do with the revelation which they contain, but to receive it with adoring gratitude and submission. The incarnation of the Godhead, the sacrifice of the Cross, justification by faith, the re-birth of the soul by the Holy Spirit, the resurrection of the body, and eternal judgement are revealed facts or truths, already proved, and must therefore constitute the heart's-creed of every true believer. These doctrines consequently were embraced by Chalmers himself, and formed thenceforward the subjects of his preaching to the people. A great excitement ensued. The community was aroused—multitudes were converted. Chalmers preached with the greatest fervor and unction, and hundreds flocked to hear himfrom the neighboring parishes. This produced inquiry, and he found it necessary to give explanations in reference to the causes which had effected such a change in his ministry. In this view the following will be read with interest and profit:

"And here I cannot but record the effect of an actual though undesigned experiment which I prosecuted upwards of twelve years amongst you. For the greater part of that time I could expatiate on the meanness of dishonesty, on the villany of falsehood, on the despicable arts of calumny—in a word upon all those deformities of character which awaken the natural indignation of the human heart against the pests and the disturbers of society. Now, could I, upon the strength of these warm expostulations, have got the thief to give up his stealing, and the evil speaker his censoriousness, and the liar his deviations from truth, I should have felt all the repose of one who had gotten his ultimate object. It never occurred to me that all this might have been done, and yet every soul of every hearer have remained in full alienation from God; and that even could I have established in the bosom of one who stole such a principle of abhorrence at the meanness of dishonesty that he was prevailed upon to steal no more, he might still have retained a heart as completely unturned to God, and as totally unpossessed of a principle of love to Him as before. In a word, though I might have made him a more upright and honorable man, I might have left him as destitute of the essence of religiousprinciple as ever. But the interesting fact is that during the whole of that period in which I made no attempt against the natural enmity of the mind to God, while I was inattentive to the way in which this enmity is dissolved, even by the free offer on the one hand, and the believing acceptance on the other, of the Gospel salvation; while Christ, through whose blood the sinner, who by nature stands afar off, is brought near to the Heavenly Lawgiver whom he has offended, was scarcely ever spoken of, or spoken of in such a way as stripped him of all the importance of his character and offices, even at this time I certainly did press the reformations of honor, and truth, and integrity among my people; but I never even heard of any such reformations being effected amongst them. If there was anything at all brought about in this way, it was more than I ever got any account of. I am not sensible that all the vehemence with which I urged the virtues and the proprieties of social life had the weight of a feather on the moral habits of my parishioners. And it was not till I got impressed with the utter alienation of the heart in its desires and affections from God; it was not till reconciliation to Him became the distinct and the prominent object of my ministerial exertions; it was not till I took the scriptural way of laying the method of reconciliation before them; it was not till the free offer of forgiveness through the blood of Christ was urged upon their acceptance, and the Holy Spirit given through the channel of Christ's mediatorship to all who ask him, was setbefore them as the unceasing object of their dependence and their prayers; it was not, in one word, till the contemplations of my people were turned to these great and essential elements in the business of a soul providing for its interest with God, and the concerns of its eternity, that I ever heard of any of those subordinate reformations which I aforetime made the earnest and the zealous, but I am afraid, at the same time, ultimate object of my earlier ministrations. To servants, whose scrupulous fidelity has now attracted the notice and drawn forth, in my hearing, a delightful testimony from your masters, what mischief ye would have done, had your zeal for doctrines and sacraments been accompanied by the sloth and remissness, and what, in the prevailing tone of moral relaxation, is counted the allowable purloining of your earlier days! But a sense of your heavenly Master's eye has brought another influence to bear upon you; and while you are thus striving to adorn the doctrine of God your Saviour in all things, you may, poor as you are, reclaim the great ones of the land to the acknowledgment of the faith. You have, at least, taught me that to preach Christ, is the only effective way of preaching morality in all its branches; and out of your humble cottages have I gathered a lesson, which I pray God I may be enabled to carry with all its simplicity into a wider theatre, and to bring, with all the power of its subduing efficacy upon the vices of a more crowded population."

In 1815 Dr. Chalmers was translated to theTron church of Glasgow, and here displayed all the resources of his brilliant and vigorous mind. Fired with a generous ardor for the salvation of souls, he poured the truth of God upon rapt and crowded congregations. In addition to the indefatigable performance of his ministerial duties, he embarked with eagerness in plans for the amelioration of the condition of the poor. He urged the importance of free school education, and although he had to encounter much prejudice, he accomplished a large amount of good for the city of Glasgow. His views upon this subject are developed in a large work, published at the time, on the "Christian and Civic Condition of Large Towns,"—a production somewhat elaborate and diffuse, but abounding in important suggestions and earnest appeals.

In 1816 he was invited to preach before the King's Commissioner in the High Church of Edinburgh. His discourse on that occasion comprised the essence of his astronomical sermons, and was probably "as magnificent a display of eloquence as was ever heard from the pulpit." The effect upon the audience was immediate and electric. It broke upon them like a shower of light from the opening heavens. By means of this discourse his fame was perhaps first widely established. From that day crowds followed him wherever he went, and, to quote his own words, he began to feel the burden "of a popularity of stare, and pressure and animal heat."

In 1819 Dr. Chalmers removed to the new churchand parish of St. John's, in which place the writer, while a student at Glasgow College, had the pleasure of hearing some of his thrilling discourses. He was then in the hey-day of life, full of mental and bodily vigor, and preached with a rapidity, force, and pathos perfectly overwhelming. He continued to devote himself to the interests of the poor, and indeed took part in every plan which contemplated the welfare of society.

In 1823 he was elected Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of St. Andrews, "where he imparted a very different character to this course from the mere worldly cast which it too generally assumes in our universities." Firmly convinced of the great truths of the Gospel, he infused into his prelections the spirit of a profound and earnest godliness. While here, he also delivered a separate course of lectures on Political Economy, as connected with the chair of Moral Philosophy.

It may be supposed from his frequent changes that Dr. Chalmers was either a fickle or an ambitious man. But those best acquainted with the circumstances, feel assured that this could not possibly have been the case. He neither increased his income nor his popularity by means of these changes, and all, we doubt not, were made with a view to greater usefulness. In one instance, certainly, he proved his disinterestedness by refusing the most wealthy living in the Church of Scotland, the west parish of Greenock, which was presented to him by the patron.

He was more than once offered an Edinburghchurch, but uniformly declined it; as he had long conceived that his widest sphere of usefulness was a theological chair. He was accordingly elected to this office, in the University of Edinburgh, and soon attracted the attention of a large and enthusiastic class of students. His lectures were able and brilliant; but this, in our judgment, was not the principal cause of his success. It consisted, as we believe, in his own ardor and enthusiasm, and the consequent ardor and enthusiasm which he inspired in his pupils. "At one time the object of the young men seemed to be to evade attendance on the Divinity Lecture; now the difficulty became to get a good place to hear their eloquent instructor." By this means much good was accomplished for the Church of Scotland, by diffusing amongst its ministry a true evangelical spirit. Still we believe that Dr. Chalmer's true sphere of labor was the pulpit, and that here alone he could exert his widest influence. It is true he preached occasionally while occupying the chair of Divinity, and gave a series of lectures on Church Establishments, which at that time he earnestly defended. "He considered that each establishedchurchthroughout the land may be termed a centre ofemanation, from which Christianity, with proper zeal, be made to move by an aggressive and converting operation, on the wide mass of the people; whilst a dissentingchapelhe views as a centre ofattractiononly for those who are religiously disposed." Recently the Doctor has found hiscentreofemanationsadly curtailed. The union of churchand state has proved, even to him, a prodigious hindrance and difficulty—a proof this, that theory and fact are very different things.

It was while Professor of Theology in Edinburgh, as we believe, that he visited London, and attracted so much attention by his sermons and lectures. While there, Mr. Canning, Lord Castlereagh, Lord Eldon, the Duke of Sussex, with several branches of the Royal Family, whom, as the journals remarked, "they were not accustomed to elbow at a place of worship," were found anxiously waiting to hear this modern Chrysostom. Caught by the irresistible charm of true genius and piety, they listened with wonder and delight to his honest and earnest appeals. They felt and acknowledged that his sermons, "as far transcended those of the mawkish productions to be frequently met with, as does the genius of Milton or of Newton surpass that of the common herd of poets and philosophers." It was a sublime sight to behold crowds of all ranks and conditions listening devoutly to the vehement exhortations of this man of God.

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