source.

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and here and there a few (among whom now Jameson would probably have been numbered), who, sick of systematising, and refining, and compromising, and winking at plain and palpable facts, and of cowardly retreat into the past, are looking upward and forward to the hills and the heavens, and expecting new life to religion from its old But better for him, and perhaps also for us, that

, he lies quiet and calm near his dear wife, and some of his children, in the kirkyard of Methven; for, although one of the gentlest and most gifted of the taught at the feet of Jesus, he wanted many of the elements the world now demands from its teachers, from those whose voices would pierce with authority through the clamours of an age

when the nations are angry,” and when, it may be, the time, too, of the “dead, that they may be judged," is drawing near.

We like to recall little traits and looks of the dear old man; his grey hairs—the benevolence struggling in every feature—the tenderness of his private tones -- the loud energy with which he sang at family worship, especially

. when the sentiment was peculiarly poetic—his gentleness to his children—the funny stories he delighted to tell the “hints to painters ” he often gave in the course of conversation, sometimes ending in the wish, “If I had but the finger!”-his recital of his own experiences, adventures, and dreams-his generous bursts of admiration for books and men-are all carefully treasured in our heart, "to go no more out.” And, when “sick of the present, ' we turn to the past," or, at least, feel that we have fallen among a race of little men, with little objects, little successes, little sorrows, and little sins, his image rises to our

, memory as that of one of the uncrowned princes and unappreciated moral giants among our kind.

No. VI.-DR CHALMERS.

THERE are some subjects which seem absolutely inexhaustible. They may be compared to the alphabet, which, after 5000

years,

is capable still of new and infinite combinations or to the sun, whose light is as fresh to-day as it was a million of ages ago—or to space, which has opened her hospitable bosom to myriads of worlds, and has ample room for myriads on myriads more. Such a fresh ever-welling theme is Chalmers, and will remain so for centuries to come; and we make no apology at all for bidding his mighty shade sit once more for its portrait, from no prejudiced or unloving hand. And here we propose first to give our own reminiscences of him; then to speak of the characteristies of his genius, eloquence, and purpose; ; and, in fine, to examine at some length his most popular work, his “ Astronomical Discourses."

We first heard Dr Chalmers preach on Sabbath, the 9th of October, 1831, when introducing the Rev. Mr Martin, of St George's, Edinburgh, to his flock. Through the kindness of a friend who sat in the church, we obtained, although with difficulty, a seat in the very front of the gallery, near a pew in which, on Sabbath, the 8th of February, 1846, we enjoyed a comfortable nap under a sermon from the Rev. Dr Brunton!

There was no napping THAT forenoon. We went, we remember, with excited but uncertain expectations. We had read Chalmers's “Astronomical Discourses," and had learned to admire them, but had no clear or decided view of their author, and were not without certain Dissenting prejudices against him. Being near-sighted, and the morning being rather dim, we could not catch a distinct glimpse of his features. We saw only a dark large mass of man bustling up the pulpit stairs, as if in some dread and desperate haste. We heard next a hoarse voice, first giving out the psalm in a tone of rapid familiar energy, and after it was sung, and prayer was over, announcing for text, “ He that is unjust let him be unjust still (stull

, he pronounced it), he that is filthy (fulthy, he called it), let him be filthy still,

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and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still, and he that is holy, let him be holy stull.” And then, like an eagle leaving the mountain cliff, he launched out at once upon his subject, and soared on without any diminution of energy or flutter of wing for an hour and more. The discourse is published, and most of our readers have probably read it. It had two or three magnificent passages, which made the audience for a season one soul. A burst especially we remember, in reference to the materialism of heaven—“There may be palms of triumph, I do not know—there may be floods of melody," and then he proceeded to show that heaven was more a state than a place. On the whole, however, we were disappointed, as indeed we were, at the first blush, with all the Edinburgh notabilities. Strange as it may seem, neither Wilson, nor Chalmers, nor Professor Leslie, nor Dr Gordon, nor Jeffrey, produced, AT FIRST, on us a tithe of the impression which many country ministers, whose names are extant only in the Lamb's Book of Life, had easily and ineffaceably left. We learned, indeed, afterwards to admire Wilson and Chalmers to the very depths of our hearts; and John Bruce, whom at first, too, we rather disrelished, became ultimately an idol. But, on the whole, our first feeling, in reference to the Edinburgh celebrities, lay and cleric, was that of intense disappointment.

This feeling would be forgiven by the men themselves, or even by the warmest of their admirers, if they could have seen us, a year or two afterwards, listening to Wilson on the immortality of the soul, to John Bruce on the text, “The sting of death is sin," or to Thomas Chalmers repeating, at the opening of the General Assembly of 1833, the sermon on “He that is fulthy let him be fülthy still.” That morning opened in all the splendoar of May --and the Assembly which met knew that the Reform Bill had passed since its last session, and that it must become perforce a reforming Assembly too. Chalmers rose to the greatness of the occasion. After delivering, with greatly increased energy, all the original discourse, he added a new peroration of prodigious power, drawing the attention of his “Fathers and Brethren” to the circum

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stances in which they were placed, and to the duties to which they were called. It told like a thunderbolt. Even the gallery, which was half erpty, was absolutely electrified; and the divinity students and young ladies who had been perseveringly ogling each othär there, were compelled to turn their eyes and hearts away towards the glowing countenance and heaving form of the Cold man eloquent.

We occasionally heard him, too, in, liis class-room, always with great interest and often with vivid delight. Our tone of enthusiasm, however, was sumewhat restrained, from our frequent intercourse with his stridents, who in general over-rated him, and were sometimes disposed to cry out, “ It is the voice of a god, not of a máx;' and whose imitations of his style and manner were frequent, and grotesquely unsuccessful. We never but once heard' him there rise to his highest pitch. It was at the close of a lecture illustrating the character and claims of Christianity; when, grasping, as it were, all around him (like an assaulted man for a sword), in search of a yet stronger proof of his point, he lifted up his own

, nomical Discourses,” and read (with a brow flushing like a crystal goblet newly filled with wine—an eye glaring with sudden excitation-a voice" pealing harsh thunder ” —and a motion as if some shirt of Nessus had just fallen upon

his shoulders—amid dead silence) the following passage:

"Let the priests of another faith ply their prudential expedients, and look so wise and so wary in the execution of them; but Christianity stands in a higher and firmer attitude. The defensive armour of a shrinking or timid policy does not suit her. Hers is the naked majesty of truth; and with all the grandeur of age, but with none of its infirmities, has she come down to us, and gathered new strength from the battles she has won in the many controversies of many generations. With such a religion as this there is nothing to hide. All should be above-boards; and the broadest light of day should be made fully and freely to circulate through all her secrecies. But secrets she has none. To her belong the frankness and simplicity of conscious greatness."

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This is eloquent writing; but where the fiery edge of Bardic power which seemed to surround it as he spoke? That is

gone;

and the number must fast lessen of those who now can remember those strange accompaniments of Chalmers's eloquence--the uplifted, half-extracted eyethe large flushed forehead—the pallor of the cheek contrasting with it--the eager lips--the mortal passion strug

— gling within the heaving breast-the furious motions of the short, fin-like arms, and the tones of the voice, which seemed sometimes to be grinding their

be grinding their way down into your ear and soul.

We heard Chalmers once, and only once, again. It was in Dundee, in the spring of 1839. The audience was crowded, although it was a week-day, and only afternoon. Theobject of the discourse was to defend church extension. For an hour or so the lecturer was chiefly employed in statistical details. He lifted up, and read occasional extracts from certain dingy, and as he called them, “delightful ill-spelled letters," from working men in support of the object. Toward the end he became more animated, and closed a brilliant burst of ten minutes' duration by quoting the lines of Burns:

"From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs;

These make her loved at home, revered abroad.
Princes and lords are but the breath of kings;

An honest man's the noblest work of God." The effect was overwhelming. We happened, in leaving the church, to pass near the orator, and were greatly struck with the rapt look of his face

“ The wind was down, but still the sea ran high.” A certain pallid gleam had succeeded the flushed ardour of his appearance in the pulpit. It was the last time we were ever to gaze on the strange, coarse, but most powerful and meaning countenance of Dr Chalmers.

And yet when, years later, we saw Duncan's picture of him, he seemed still alive before us. The leonine massive

, ness of the head, body, and brow—the majestic repose of the attitude—the eye withdrawn upwards into a deep happy dream—the air of simple homely grandeur about