Thomas Chalmers. William Garden Blaikie
verities of life; striving to explain their relations and applications, and then pressing them with tremendous energy on the hearts and consciences of his fellows. For Professor Brown, his mathematical teacher, he retained through life the warmest regard; and when he died in 1836, he wrote to his widow, that of all his public instructors he was the one that impressed him most, and to whom he owed most in the formation of his tastes and habits, and in the guidance of his literary life.
As the termination of his curriculum in arts drew near, it became necessary that he should choose a profession. Strange to say, although he had no favour either for theology or religion, he had declared from his boyhood for the ministry. Some of the more picturesque sayings of the Bible had taken a remarkable hold of his mind. When but three years old, being missed and sought for, after it had become dark, he was found alone, pacing up and down in the nursery, repeating to himself the words of David, 'O my son Absalom, my son Absalom; O Absalom, my son, my son!' The sister of one of his schoolfellows used to tell of her breaking in on the two, and finding him on a chair, preaching vigorously to his single hearer. It was the soul of the orator asserting itself from the very first.
But when he entered on his theological course, there seemed to be little or no development of the real spirit of the ministry. He was, indeed, full of reverence for truth, and so impatient of anything like double dealing, that when his professor represented that certain doctrines of Calvinism should not be much spoken of, he could not but ask, Why not, if they be true? Throughout his whole life he disliked men who were not above board with everything, and his own regard for truth was transparent to all. For a time his mind was clouded with scepticism. The books that were most useful in restoring his faith were Butler's Analogyand Beattie's Essay on Truth. A very remarkable effect was produced on him when, some time after, he became acquainted with Jonathan Edwards on The Freedom of the Will. For a time he could neither think nor talk of anything else. What so impressed him was the idea of the whole series of events in the spiritual as well as the material world being bound together by unalterable links, and thus forming one vast scheme – a wonderful tribute to the wisdom, power, and glory of God. The incident showed how his mind had expanded, and how he had come to find delight in large, comprehensive views of things. Long after, he spoke of the year in which this subject occupied him as a time of mental elysium, so great was his delight. Yet at this time evangelical truth was positively rejected. We are reminded of the experience of another, afterwards a colleague of his own in New College, Edinburgh, the late Dr. John Duncan, who, even when a student of divinity, wandered for a time in the gloomy mazes of atheism, but when brought into the light of theism – apart from Christianity altogether – expressed his emotion in a way of his own: 'I danced on the brig o' Dee when I came to see there was a God.'
It was of course necessary, when he had advanced somewhat in his divinity course, that he should practise the art of composition. His first efforts, we are told, were poor enough. The composition both of his letters and his college exercises was bald, unrelieved by any gleam of fancy or sentiment. But in two years he had learned to write with ease and fluency, and he had formed that remarkable, if somewhat turgid style which he practised ever after. We know so little of the English writers who engaged his attention at this time that the natural history of his style is something of a puzzle. It has somewhat of the swell and dignity of Johnson, and much of the diffuseness of Burke – two of the most prominent writers in his youth. But its main quality must have arisen from the burning fervour of his own mind, and the natural outflow of his thoughts, shaping his language spontaneously, and moulding it into characteristic forms of beauty and power.
When in 1842, on the eve of the Disruption, Chalmers met four or five hundred of his brethren in what was known as the Convocation, and endeavoured to reconcile them to the prospect of an unendowed church, the task was one that demanded the highest efforts of his eloquence. It was his aim to rouse them to an attitude worthy of the occasion, and, with that view, he concluded an appeal of transcendent power with a eulogy of enthusiasm which awakened thunders of applause. Never had he seemed more eloquent. Yet the passage that had so thrilled his audience was found after his death to be an exact transcript from one of his student discourses. 'Enthusiasm is a virtue rarely produced in a state of calm and unruffled repose. It flourishes in adversity. It kindles in the hour of danger and rises to deeds of renown. The terrors of persecution only serve to awaken the energy of its purposes. It swells in the pride of integrity, and great in the purity of its cause, it can scatter defiance amid a host of enemies.' – Already, 'fervet, immensusque ruit.'
In those days it was the practice of the members of the university to meet morning and evening in the public hall for worship, the prayers being led by the students of divinity. In his first theological session, Mr. Chalmers's prayer was an amplification of the Lord's Prayer, so eloquent and original as to awaken the wonder of all. One who remembered his prayers on these occasions said: 'The wonderful flow of eloquent, vivid, ardent description of the attributes and works of God, and still more, perhaps, the astonishingly harrowing delineation of the miseries, the horrid cruelties, immoralities, and abominations inseparable from war, which always came in more or less in connection with the bloody warfare in which we were engaged with France, called forth the wonderment of his hearers. He was then only sixteen years of age, yet he showed a taste and capacity for composition of the most glowing and eloquent kind. Even then his style was very much the same as at the period when he attracted so much notice, and made such powerful impression in the pulpit and by the press.'
Thus already, in his student days, that great outline of character had begun to shape itself, which, modified afterwards by new and powerful forces, made him the great man he was. The intensity of his nature, the redundant energy that hardly knew fatigue, the largeness of his view, the warmth of his affection, the independence of his judgment, and the gushing impetuosity of his style were manifest from these college days. Whatever he may have derived from his parents, or from the masters that taught him, or the books he read, a fearless, sturdy independence was the ruling feature – he was a genuine Scot.
On finishing his theological studies he accepted a situation as tutor in a family, under the feeling that, as his knowledge of mankind had hitherto been limited to his own family and his fellow-students, it was desirable for him to know a little more of the world. But his experience was not happy. It was not merely that his hours of teaching were so arranged as to leave him hardly any time for reading, but that his treatment was not what he considered due to a gentleman. Of such treatment he was sensitive to the last degree, nor was he restrained by any bashfulness or timidity from expressing his opinion of it. His employer wished to throw the blame on himself, and told him he had too much pride. He could not deny the charge, but showed a ready wit in hurling it back on his accuser. 'Sir,' was his undaunted reply, 'there are two kinds of pride: there is the pride which lords it over inferiors, and there is the pride which rejoices in repressing the insolence of superiors. The first I have none of – the second I glory in.' This, to say the least, was tolerably smart for a lad of eighteen. But it showed not only his independence but his intolerance of opposition. Soon after, he gave up the situation.
He had not completed his nineteenth year when he applied to his presbytery to be licensed as a probationer. He was under the legal age, but probably his precocity had made a considerable impression, for the law was evaded under a traditional exception in favour of youths 'of pregnant parts,' and on the 21st July 1799 he became a licentiate. But he did not show much interest in the work of his new calling. Immediately after, he paid a visit to friends in England, in the course of which he preached his first sermon, at Wigan, on 25th August 1799. His eldest brother wrote to his father: 'His mode of delivery is expressive, his language beautiful, and his arguments very forcible and strong… It is the opinion of those who pretend to be judges that he will shine in the pulpit, but as yet he is rather awkward in his appearance. We, however, are at some pains in adjusting his dress, manner, etc., but he does not seem to pay any great regard to it himself. His mathematical studies appear to occupy more of his time than his religious.'
Returning from England, he spent the next two winters at Edinburgh attending classes at the university. Mathematics, chemistry, natural and moral philosophy, and political economy were the subjects that occupied his attention. To Dr. Robison, Professor of Natural Philosophy, he felt himself under very deep obligations. He had been perplexed by the views which he found in the Système de la Nature, published under the pseudonym of Mirabeau, but really