Thomas Chalmers. William Garden Blaikie
At last he gave up all attempts at the extemporaneous, both in his sermons and speeches, except in the way of parenthetical remarks designed to elucidate some point that had not been made sufficiently clear.
But we must not close the record of his Kilmany life without adverting to an important domestic event which took place about two years before he left the place. Till near that time he had, like Dr. Livingstone in Africa at a later period, determined to lead the life of a bachelor. A recent disappointment in connection with an application for augmentation of stipend, confirmed him in that resolve. But neither Chalmers nor Livingstone had taken into reckoning a mysterious influence which can make sport of the firmest resolutions, and prostrate strong men at the feet of Hymen. Chalmers had fallen in love with Miss Grace Pratt, daughter of Captain Pratt of the First Royal Veteran Battalion, who had been living for some time with her uncle, Mr. Simson, at Starbank, in the parish of Kilmany. The marriage took place on 4th August 1812, and the union lasted for thirty-five years of unbroken domestic happiness. His sister Jane, his housekeeper, had been married shortly before to Mr. Morton, a gentleman in Gloucestershire, and in communicating to her what was probably a very unexpected piece of intelligence, he veiled the news under an allegorical form which it may have taken her a little trouble to elucidate. Referring to a recent but somewhat unsuccessful process of his before the Court of Tiends for augmentation of stipend, he said he had been involved in another process before another court. He had been defeated in the one, but he was glad to say he had been triumphant in the other. In the latter case he had had to do the whole business himself. He had had to frame the summons and to conduct the pleadings. There had been replies and duplies, and many a personal appearance at court before the process was settled. At last a decision had been given in his favour. But the law required the decision to be followed by a proclamation – not a single proclamation at the cross, but two proclamations, that had to be made within a quarter of a mile of his own house. The letter concluded: 'I ken, Jane, you always thought me an ill-pratted (mischievous) chiel; but, I can issure you, of all the pratts I ever played, none was ever carried on, or even ended more grace-fully.' And Mrs. Morton congratulated him on his victory.
His fame as a pulpit orator had now travelled from Maidenkirk to John o' Groats, and it could not be expected that he should be left in a secluded country parish. In Glasgow, the Tron parish church had become vacant, and Chalmers was suggested as successor to Dr. Macgill. It was easy for the anti-evangelical party to ridicule the idea of bringing a madman to such a place; but a deputation from the Town Council, who were patrons of the church, went to hear him preach. On the Sunday in question he preached, at Bendochy, a funeral sermon on Mr. Honey, a young minister whose fatal illness had been brought on by his exertions in saving from shipwreck seven exhausted sailors, whom, one by one, he bore from their stranded vessel to the shore. The impression of that sermon was overpowering. In spite of the opposition of the Duke of Montrose, Sir Islay Campbell, the Lord Provost, and the College, Chalmers received from the Town Council a presentation to the Tron, and, after considerable hesitation, accepted it. It was a great wrench to tear himself from Kilmany, which he loved and admired so greatly, and from the people that were dear to him as his own children. All his life, Fife, and especially Kilmany, continued thus dear. On his way to Glasgow he had occasion to climb the Calton Hill in Edinburgh, and the sight of Norman Law, which was visible from the windows of the manse of Kilmany, quite overcame him. 'Oh! with what vivid remembrance can I wander in thought over all its farms and all its families, and dwell on the kind and simple affection of its people, till the contemplation becomes too bitter for my endurance.'
It was no less a trial to leave the work which was now advancing so hopefully in the parish. But he could not be insensible to the claims of such a city as Glasgow, and the boundless field for usefulness it afforded. And so, in great humility, and in great fear lest he should be giving an undue preference to intellect and culture over poverty and obscurity, he accepted the call. He preached a most impressive farewell sermon on 9th July 1815, which concluded with these words: 'Be assured, my brethren, that after the dear and the much-loved scenery of this peaceful vale has disappeared from my eye, the people who live in it shall retain a warm and an ever-enduring place in my memory; and this mortal body must be stretched on the bed of death ere the heart that now animates it can resign its exercise of longing after you, and praying for you that you may so receive Christ Jesus, and so walk in Him, and so hold fast the things you have gotten, and so prove that the labour I have had among you has not been in vain, that when the sound of the last trumpet awakens us, these eyes which are now bathed in tears may open upon a scene of eternal blessedness, and we, my brethren, whom the providence of God has withdrawn for a little time from each other, may on that day be found side by side at the right hand of the everlasting throne.'
When we compare Chalmers as he came to Kilmany and as he left it, we find much that remains the same, and much that has been changed or modified.
Remaining the same, we find his singularly energetic, forceful nature; his high integrity and kindliness of heart, as it constantly streamed out towards his family, his friends, and his flock; his eager desire for the welfare of his people, for their advancement and elevation in all that he counted good, pure, and noble; his indomitable energy of purpose and fearless contending for right and truth; his passionate intensity of conviction, rolling itself out in whirlwinds and tempests of eloquence, that swept all before it. The great change which he has undergone has not destroyed these fundamental elements of character.
Nevertheless, all things have become new. He has learned that true life, in its every department, must be lived in fellowship with God. He has learned the way to God, to God reconciled, a loving Father, a considerate Master, a gracious Friend and Guide. He has seen the reality of Christ's atonement, and of the work of the Holy Spirit, and found a new value in prayer, and a new use of the sacred Scriptures. He has got new light on the true welfare of the people, and especially on the need for every one of personal contact with Christ; new light, also, on the true dignity of every individual man and woman in view of the capacities of their souls and the immortality that is before them. He has found a nobler theme and a higher inspiration for that eloquence which has moulded his labours in the pulpit. He is not less desirous to see the people prosperous and happy, but he has been convinced that their true welfare is dependent on heavenly grace, and, in the case of the poor, that there is nothing like Christian influence whether for preventing or alleviating the evils of poverty, or, where there are poor, raising them above the depressing conditions of their lot. And this is just the germ of that more comprehensive view of the conditions of social welfare to which he will be drawn when he finds himself side by side with the teeming thousands of Glasgow. He looks forward more ardently than ever to the full development of the parochial system. Nor has his enthusiasm for science abated. He has seen that, much though he loves it, it is not his part to devote to it the time needed for his more immediate duties. But now that he sees it more clearly than ever a department of that great kingdom of God in which all interests are combined in a wonderful unity, his respect for it is greater rather than less. And, as a handmaid to the Gospel, he will soon find a noble use for it in those astronomical discourses which are soon to arrest the attention of the intellectual world.
Thus equipped, and with these aims, Chalmers proceeds to Glasgow. He is inducted into his new charge, 23rd July 1815. His incumbency there is to be shorter even than at Kilmany; but the eight years that are now before him are to witness the commencement of a work and the advocacy of a cause which will not only bring out the greatness of his character, but tell on the welfare of the whole Church and country for generations to come.
CHAPTER III
GLASGOW
1815-1823
It cannot be said that Chalmers took very kindly to Glasgow. He missed the wide expanse, the fresh air, the Arcadian simplicity of his much-loved Kilmany; also, the intimate acquaintance he had with every individual, and the comparative leisure of a country life. He found himself 'cribbed, cabined, and confined' by streets and lanes and 'lands,' and flung upon dense masses of population that baffled every attempt at individual acquaintance and interest. No doubt the people were most kind and hospitable, and if dinners and other entertainments could have satisfied him, he might have had them to his heart's content. But, bent as he was on his especial work, and eager to launch new plans of usefulness, it was irksome beyond endurance to have to devote whole afternoons and evenings to eating and drinking,