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CHAPTER X.

Chalmers at Work.

HO in those days was a more hopeful, happy man than Chalmers ? When we think of him, the solemn gladness of those psalms, in which either the Shepherd-minstrel himself, or the nameless Beethovens and Haydns of the old Hebrew Church, expressed the music of their walk with God, recurs to us. He rejoiced like a strong man to run his race, treading like the sun as it mounts the sky, and feeling the pleasure of the Lord prospering in his hand. The Church-the Established Church had set herself right. The flock was delivered from hireling shepherds, and the true brothers of the Presbyterian pastorate, who had been sent to the tents of Kedar-the ecclesiastical Coventry -of chapel ministration, were raised to the seats of honour, no mere street preachers, but fully equipped elders to judge the twelve tribes of Israel.

Can we wonder that Chalmers should believe, say in 1835, when the resurgent Church had passed those measures of legislative reform, that he was in a fair way to wipe the last stain of infidel or dissident reproach

from the brow of the Scottish Establishment, and that he felt confidence in the willingness of the State to co-operate with the Church in what he viewed as their joint work of benefiting the people of Scotland? It is most instructive, and it is, we must add, profoundly pathetic, to behold this strong Churchman straining his energies to the utmost to demonstrate, by the final testimony of experience, that a rejuvenescent Church could find favour in the eyes of British statesmen. If ever man believed in the theoretic and practical feasibility of the express association of religious institutions and political institutions in promoting the health and wealth of nations, it was he.

The problem he now grappled with was Church Extension. In urging it forward, he appealed not only to Christian principles, but to the evidence of his eyes. His idiosyncrasy, be it remembered, was the combination, perhaps unique, of an impetuosity of spiritual ardour comparable to that of St. Paul, with a utilitarianism as cool, circumspect, and thorough - going as that of Jeremy Bentham. He once expressed to a bosom friend grave and depressing doubts as to the real use and benefit of those splendid exhibitions of pulpit eloquence which were filling the world with his fame; but he exulted in the confidence that he was making a right and fruitful use of his faculties when he trod the slums of Glasgow, the auxiliary of the policeman, bringing celestial fire to irradiate their darkness, and superseding both policeman and relieving officer by the unbought ministrations of Christian charity, quickening into development every germ of self-help, every dormant energy of family affection.

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Apply, then, he now in many accents impatiently cried, this experience to the State. Was it not palpable that the people so operated on were like to be better subjects, more law-abiding, less turbulent, less criminal, less pauperised, than if left in heathenish irreligion? Could any man deny that "a depraved commonalty is the teeming source of all moral and political disorder" ? This he expected statesmen to admit, when he appealed to them to promote Church extension.

He proposed that over-peopled parishes should be subdivided into manageable districts; that in each of these districts there should be erected "an economical church," so economical that the sittings, if rented at all, might be let cheaply enough to admit attendance by the humblest classes. The Church was ready with "talented and well-disposed licentiates, alive to the great moral necessities of our land, and resolved to enter with the full consecration of their powers and opportunities on that high walk of philanthropy, whose object is to reclaim those degenerate outcasts who have so multiplied in thousands and tens of thousands beyond the means of Christian instruction."

What of endowment ? That was a matter that required to be thought of. With characteristic regard to their own interests, the heritors, who by ancient arrangement ought to have borne at least part of the charge, had applied to Parliament for protection to their pockets. Statesmen had been willing enough to listen to them. "A recent Act" had screened them from liability in connection with the new territorial churches. There

remained "the liberality of the patriotic and the good," in short, the voluntary system without the big V, to fall back upon, and these made generous response to the appeal of Chalmers. But he did not forget that he was working for the poor. They little know this man who imagine that, if he had obtained money enough to decorate the towns and enliven the parishes of Scotland with handsome churches, filled with rich and fashionable congregations, he would have attained his object or reaped his reward. High steeples, advertising crack preachers to attract hearers from miles or leagues around, on the system which has since been so brilliantly developed in London and elsewhere, would have been looked on by him with small enthusiasm. Valuing at all times and in all places the preaching of the gospel, he was not bent only on preaching. "In this way," he wrote, "there I would be no increase in the amount of Christian instruction in the country, but only a transference of hearers from one place to another, a building up of new at the expense of old congregations. It would but make a new distribution of hearers among people who already hear somewhere." It was not as a thing of ornament, but as a thing of use, that this man contemplated the parochial system. "The great thing wanted is, that the thousands now living in practical heathenism, and who at present hear nowhere, shall be reclaimed to the decencies of a Christian land; and this can only be done by planting churches with low seat-rents in the midst of these people, giving them a preference above all others to the sittings in their own local churches, and making it the distinct business of the newly-endowed ministers, each to culti

vate, and as much as possible confine himself to, the households of his own assigned locality. In this way altogether new ground will be entered upon; a real movement in advance will be made among a heretofore neglected population. Christian instruction will be let down to the poorest of our families; and our Establishment, if extended in this way, will become, and at a very cheap rate, an effective home-mission in favour of those whose thorough moral and Christian education, both piety and the public good so loudly demand.”

The authority of the State in measuring out areas for the territorial churches, and an extremely limited grant of money in each case, say £100, just sufficient to secure that there should be sittings accessible to the poorest self-sustaining parishioners, such was the modest request of Chalmers and the awakening Church to that State which was supposed to bestow upon her inestimable advantage in their joint labour of promoting Christian instruction in Scotland. What was the reply?

At first there had been some encouraging symptoms on the part of the Government. The Melbourne Cabinet had given a courteous hearing to a deputation from Edinburgh, that came to London to plead for the scheme in 1834. The Whig phalanx, that seemed unassailable after the passing of the great Reform Bill, had even then begun to waver under the skilful attacks of Peel, and was driven from office in that year. But it was against his own judgment as a parliamentary tactician that Sir Robert had pressed his advantage so far, and the consequent rally of his opponents and partial reattainment of popularity placed them more firmly in their seats than before.