In other cases, relatives were induced to take charge of destitute children, or older children to take charge of younger. In one case, the father and mother of a family composed of six children both died; three of the six were earning wages, and three were unable to work. The three elder applied to have the three younger admitted to the poorhouse. It was pointed out to them by Dr. Chalmers's agents that this would be a great slur on the family; and a small quarterly allowance was promised if they should keep together. The advice was taken, and the quarterly allowance was but twice required. The family lived together, gaining a character for independence and brotherliness that in itself must have been a considerable help to their success in life. And many other such cases occurred.
The result of these operations, during the three years and nine months when Dr. Chalmers personally presided over them, was instructive and striking. The whole number of new cases admitted on the roll was twenty, and the annual cost of these was £66. The number of cases originally committed to Dr. Chalmers was ninety-eight, of whom twenty-eight had died, and thirteen had been displaced in consequence of a scrutiny, leaving (with the twenty new cases) seventy-seven on the roll, the cost of whose yearly maintenance was £190. In the second year of their operations the church was able to take the whole of the poorhouse inmates connected with the parish off that institution, at an expense to themselves of £90 a year. In this way the pauperism that had cost the town £1400 was now managed at an expenditure of £280. And the pauperism itself became a decreasing quantity. 'The St. John's deacons, mingling as they did familiarly with all the families, and proving themselves by word and deed the true but enlightened friends of all, did far more to prevent pauperism than to provide for it.'
It cannot be said that his theory of pauperism was a hasty scheme, the result of mere benevolent impulse, or that Chalmers did not take sufficient means to acquaint himself with the subject in all its aspects. He had already given expression to his ideas in the Edinburgh Review, and shown that the matter had engaged his most earnest study. Later, he made an elaborate journey through England in order to become personally acquainted with the places and the persons there most conversant with the subject. This visit embraced Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Gloucester, Wells, Salisbury, Southampton, Portsmouth, London, Bury St. Edmunds, Bedford, and Nottingham. The journey occupied seven weeks, and in the course of it he came into contact with many of the public men who were interested in that class of subjects, conspicuous among whom were Lord Calthorpe and Mr. Fowell Buxton. The anti-slavery leaders, such as Mr. Z. Macaulay, Mr. Babington, and Mr. Clarkson, were generally sympathetic, but their energies were too much absorbed in the anti-slavery movement to admit of their throwing them into Dr. Chalmers's scheme. Indeed there were but few men of mark at that time interested in social questions. In his sense of the urgency of these questions, Dr. Chalmers was before his age. The more immediate object he had in view, that of gathering information, was sufficiently accomplished; but there is no indication that he made much progress in indoctrinating public men with his views. If ever he cherished the hope that a party would arise in England who should deal with pauperism on his lines, that hope was never fulfilled. Nor was it the privilege of Dr. Chalmers to find his experiment carried out thoroughly in other places, or even to witness its permanence in his own chosen locality. For several years it continued to prosper; in 1830, ten years after the commencement of the undertaking, he informed a committee of the House of Commons that the whole annual expense of St. John's pauperism for the preceding year had been £384; and in 1833, Mr. Tufnell, an English Poor-Law Commissioner, reported: 'The system has been attended with the most triumphant success; it is now in perfect operation, and not a doubt is expressed by its managers of its continuing to remain so.' Why, then, did the system not extend? Mainly, we believe, because Chalmers stood alone in that unrivalled energy which could not only conceive and plan the scheme and fight down its opponents, but likewise find competent agents, and inspire them with his own spirit in order to carry it into effect. It was a scheme that demanded a strong magnetic power on the part of its head to overcome the vis inertiæ of ordinary men, and send them into the field, and keep them in the field, vigilant, alert, unwearied, and hopeful. No doubt his principles were acted on to a certain extent in many parishes where there was no pressure of poverty;[2] but we are not aware of any instance in which his plan was boldly made to do duty in the heart of a large city parish.
And why did the experiment not become permanent? Because two conditions under which it was established were not kept. One was, that a law of residence should be established between the parishes of the city, so that St. John's should not be burdened with a pauperism which it had done nothing to create. The other condition was, that so long as St. John's kept its own poor, it should be exempted from any assessment for the poor generally. Neither of these conditions was kept. Moreover, the expense for lunatics and exposed children grew at a much greater rate than the population, and a chapel of ease, expected to be a great help, turned out a failure. And at no time did the authorities of the city and the other parishes give the countenance that might have been expected to so successful and economical a scheme. The result was that, in 1837, the parish of St. John's lapsed into the general system of Glasgow. And later, after a vehement opposition from Dr. Chalmers, the present law, supporting the poor by assessment, was passed, which virtually put an end to the old paternal method of administration. It was easy to represent the plan of Dr. Chalmers as a niggardly system, which doled out mere driblets of charity, not sufficient to keep soul and body together. But it was forgotten that one of its main objects was to keep those subsidiary streamlets running which the affection of relatives and the compassion of neighbours supplied, as well as to encourage the independence, the industry, the thrift, and the sobriety which would have kept pauperism afar off. The undeniable result of the compulsory system has been an enormous addition to the cost of pauperism, and we fear, it must be added, a serious diminution of those good old Scottish habits which discouraged and prevented its growth. The increase of drinking has tended greatly not only to the growth, but to the unmanageableness of pauperism. If the drink-curse could be effectively dealt with, there would be no need for a poor-assessment; the churches of the country, as in time past, would be quite able, as they would be cordially willing, to support the poor.
In connection with the literary labours of Dr. Chalmers, reference has already been made to the publication of the Astronomical Discourses in 1817 and the Commercial Discourses in 1820. In addition to these, we have to note a volume of Miscellaneous Discourses published in 1819. While this volume was passing through the press, he expressed his belief that it would bring another nest of hornets about him, in the shape of angry critics and reviewers. 'It has been singularly the fate of my publications to be torn to pieces in the journals, but at the same time to be extensively bought and read.' An edition of seven thousand copies of the new volume was printed, but the result was the reverse of what he anticipated; the journals did not cut it up, nor did the public buy it up, with the same avidity as before. But even in this our day of vast editions, seven thousand copies of a volume of sermons would be an unprecedented undertaking.
A much more out-of-the-way publication, in the successive numbers, was the Civic and Christian Economy of Large Towns. This was most emphatically a Chalmerian project. It originated about the time of his appointment to St. John's, in his determination to set himself right against a calumnious charge that he was secretly aiming at a vacant chair in the University of Edinburgh, and ready to leave in the lurch the friends who were to aid him in the St. John's undertaking. Nothing could have hurt him more than a charge of underhand scheming. A fugitive pamphlet might have served his purpose; but a wider project took hold of him, of enlightening his congregation and the public generally from time to time on all that concerned the prosperous administration of the parish, and of large towns generally. The first number was published on 24th September 1819, and the succeeding numbers followed quarterly in unbroken succession until his removal to St. Andrews. We see again how far he was in advance of his age in the importance which he attached to a sound Christian economy of large cities. Seventy-eight years ago, large towns were far fewer than they are now, and of course much smaller, and they had scarcely begun to attract attention as a novel and difficult feature of our social condition. Yet Chalmers was all alive to their importance, and keenly pondered the measures necessary for their administration. And the result shows how true his forecast was. Not only had he thought out the problem, and arrived at its solution, but he had set to work practically to carry his plan into execution; and to this he now added the additional function of expounding and defending it in a quarterly publication. And all the while he was carrying on his unrivalled work in the pulpit; he was superintending all the machinery of the parish; he was cultivating most conscientiously the vineyard of his own soul; and he was interesting himself in all that concerned his friends, and in a thousand other objects and projects that were continually pressing upon his attention.
It is not easy to describe the earnest personal dealings with God which he maintained during the whole time of this busy Glasgow ministry. To those who can enter into this high phase of life, no aspect of his character is more remarkable. Sometimes the intensity of his thirst after a high spiritual life appears in his letters, but more directly in his diary. Immediately after the commencement of his Glasgow ministry, he formed an almost romantic friendship with a young man of the name of Smith, whom he looked on as his first convert. Alongside of this youth (as of Mr. Anderson at Kilmany) he placed himself as if they were on the same footing—fellow-learners, fellow-pilgrims, fellow-suppliants, equally in need of the grace and guidance of God. 'O God, do Thou look propitiously on our friendship. Do Thou purify it from all that is base, sordid, and earthly. May it be altogether subordinated to the love of Thee. May it be the instrument of great good to each of our souls. May it sweeten the path of our worldly pilgrimage: and after death has divided us for a season, may it find its final blessedness and consummation at the right hand of Thine everlasting throne.' During Mr. Smith's last illness he wrote to him at least once a day and saw him very often. Sometimes he would carry his manuscript to his room and write his sermon there. It was during an absence of Dr. Chalmers from Glasgow that he died. 'On my return, Thomas Smith was dead. I have been thrown into successive floods of tenderness.' In the prayer offered at his funeral, which has been preserved, he expressed the warmest thanks for all the grace given to this young man, and all the good his example and influence had done; and for himself as well as for others he prayed most fervently that they might all 'retire from the scene with hearts bettered, with minds resolved to forsake all for Christ, with affections weaned from this world and all its lying vanities.'
Very beautiful, too, was the outpouring of his feelings towards her who had become the partner of his life, his best beloved and most longed for on earth. Before she was his wife the prayer had risen, 'O my God, pour Thy best blessings on G. Give her ardent and decided Christianity; may she be the blessing and the joy of all around her; may her light shine while she lives; and when she dies, may it be a mere step—a transition in her march to a joyful eternity.' And afterwards he wrote to her: 'I have to request of my dear G. that she stir herself up to lay hold of God. Do act faith on the great truths of divine revelation. Do cry mightily to God for pardon in the name and for the sake of Christ; and, relying on the power of His blood and of His Spirit, commit yourself to Him in well-doing as unto a faithful Creator.'
How well worthy Mrs. Chalmers was of being the wife of such a man was best known to those who enjoyed the intimate friendship of the family. The late Dr. Smith of St. George's, Glasgow, who knew them intimately, from having been Dr. Chalmers's assistant, held her to be 'in all respects a helpmeet for her distinguished husband. She strengthened his hands and encouraged his heart in every labour of love. As a wife, a mother, a mistress, a friend, a disciple of Him who was meek and lowly in spirit, few are better entitled to affection's warmest tribute.'
But it was in the direct communings of his spirit with God that the depth of his humility and the ardour of his desires for a higher life were most apparent:—