In addition to these considerations, another ground of his opposition to the Reform Bill was his respect for an aristocracy and the influence of an aristocracy, as contributing important elements to the welfare of a country. He held that 'in every land of law and liberty, with an order of men possessing large and independent affluence, there is better security for the general comfort and virtue of the whole than when society presents an aspect of almost unalleviated plebeianism.' But, 'it is not for the sake of its ornaments and its chivalry alone that we want the high rank of our aristocracy to be upholden.' It was for the spirit that they circulated through all ranks—a more noble spirit, he thought, than either France with its 'Citizen King,' or the United States with their universal social equality, could inspire. In his intercourse with the aristocracy, it was the best and most congenial of them that admitted him to their society, and nothing charmed him more than to find a combination of rank and wealth with Christian principle and philanthropic activity, along with the charm of refined and gentle but unassuming manners. Such movements as the Reform Bill he deemed hurtful to the influence of the aristocracy, and therefore disadvantageous to the welfare of the country. It was a different set of aristocrats, and a different kind of policy he had to criticise when, on occasion of his last visit to London, he gave evidence to a Parliamentary Committee in connection with the hardships suffered by congregations of the Free Church from the refusal of sites by aristocratic landowners.
Undoubtedly the main activity of Chalmers during his Edinburgh life was connected with the work of the church. But before proceeding to this, it may be well to advert to his literary activity, which, amid all his other occupations, was very remarkable. We have already noticed his Bridgewater treatise, afterwards reconstructed in his Natural Theology. We have also noticed his volume on the subject of the Poor-Laws. It was during this period that he completed and published in four volumes his Lectures on the Epistle to the Romans, which had been begun but not finished as pulpit discourses in Glasgow; regarding which the late Mr. Isaac Taylor gave his judgment that they would probably be the most enduring of his writings. In this period likewise he collected and edited his whole works, amounting to the goodly number of twenty-five volumes. Of a large number of his pamphlets, introductory essays, articles in reviews, and other miscellaneous writings, our space allows us to say nothing. But the work of this period which Chalmers himself thought most of was, his treatise in two volumes on Political Economy. The subject had an attraction for him ever since his attendance on certain classes in the University of Edinburgh in 1799-1801. His first published volume had been on one of its topics. In the University of St. Andrews he had given a course of lectures upon it. It may seem strange that, after his change of views and intense consecration to spiritual work, he should still have felt so lively an interest in a subject usually considered the driest and most secular in the whole round of the sciences. But, as he remarked in his preface, there were two ways of presenting political economy. One was merely to expound its doctrines; the other, along with this, to consider its applications. It was with this latter object in view that Dr. Chalmers bestowed so earnest attention on the subject. On the doctrines of political economy, indeed, he held and expounded many original views,—views which were treated with undeserved contempt by the Quarterly Review, but of which so high an authority as Mr. Stuart Mill wrote in a very different spirit. Accepting it as the great aim of political economy to make the most of a country's material resources, and advance to the utmost the comfort and prosperity of its people, Dr. Chalmers urged with great earnestness that all its methods were in themselves incompetent to secure this end. Without due provision for the moral and spiritual nature, the true welfare and the true comfort of men could never be achieved. Besides this, he held that society was ever tending to a condition which could not but defeat the very ends which political economy had in view. It was the constant tendency of population to increase, and thus outgrow production—outgrow the provision for the supply of its material wants. However much production might be increased, it could not be increased in the ratio of population, so that at length a time must come when, in spite of every expedient, destitution must set in. The only safeguard against this was to raise the intelligence and the moral habits of the people, to inspire them with a desire for a more civilised kind of life, to give them a taste for higher enjoyments, and induce them to cultivate the industry, the skill, and the self-control by which these might be attained. But how would this check population? Dr. Chalmers was in this respect in sympathy with Malthus; he wished to check early and improvident marriages, and the best means of doing this was to elevate the standard of living, so that marriage should be delayed until the means of reaching this standard were realised. It must be owned, we think, that this was a one-sided view. There are undoubted moral risks of a very serious kind involved in the delay of marriage until an age when the passions have somewhat cooled down. It was the habit of Chalmers to let his mind dwell at one time on but one aspect of a subject, and not give full weight to counterbalancing considerations. Most readers will agree thoroughly with him in his view that improved taste and enlarged views must bring in their wake increased comfort and a higher social standing; but the system of political economy that rested on the Malthusian principle is not entitled to be placed much higher than other systems; and the only security for moral improvement lies in that Christian education and Christian influence on which Chalmers laid so much stress, and which came not from political economy, but from the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Whatever we may think of his outlet from the insoluble problem of political economy, we must recognise with admiration his overwhelming sense of the value of this Christian education and training with a view to the highest welfare of mankind. This indeed was the reigning idea of Chalmers, pursued steadily throughout his whole life, alike in his sermons, his books, his scientific researches, his practical schemes, his intercourse with his fellows, and, we may add, his communion with his God. If ever a life had unity, it was that of Chalmers. To get men impregnated with the spirit of Christ, and alive to the lessons of His Gospel was, one way or other, his continual aim. Not only did he strive to bring individual men into contact with Christ, so that they should receive salvation, and partake of spiritual life, but he desired that all the influences that played on society should be such as to encourage the Christian spirit and Christian habits. National education without Christianity was a blunder not to be thought of. The rulers of the state ought to encourage the church as the highest instrument of good to the people. The division of the country into parishes and districts was important as securing a more efficient ministration of Christianity to every section of the community. A rate-supported system of relief to the poor was atrocious, because it hindered the exercise of Christian habits, it deadened the very charity which it professed to promote. Interference with the spiritual function of the Christian church was an evil not to be endured; it was putting chains on the great instrument of the world's emancipation; it was arresting the one great force through which all things were to be made new. Daily, and almost hourly, it was the prayer of Chalmers that he might be guided from above in all his efforts to bring individuals and the community alike under Christian influence and Christian habits. And it was the practice of these private devotions that brought to him the wisdom, the strength, and the patience with which he laboured at the utmost stretch of his powers, and without intermission, for the Christian good of his country.
But we must now glance at some of his labours in connection with the church during the period now under review. In 1832 we find him occupying the chair of the General Assembly, and signalising his year of office by bringing about, in conjunction with Lord Belhaven, the Lord High Commissioner, the abolition of a practice of Sabbath dinners and Sabbath breakfasts that had hitherto prevailed. Next year, as a member of Assembly, he introduced the celebrated measure known as the Veto, but without success, his proposal being rejected by a majority of twelve. As the evangelical revival advanced, dissatisfaction with the law of patronage advanced apace. When the Reform Act came into operation, it was felt to be but reasonable that as the voice of the people was now to be heard in the choice of their rulers, it ought to be heard likewise in the choice of their ministers. To give them this voice was the object of the veto law. Even under the law of patronage there was a provision by which the presentee must have a 'call' from the people; but it had never been settled what this call meant, and in practice it had degenerated into a mere form. It was thought by some that it would have been wiser for the church to define the call; but the 'veto' was preferred, because it was held to imply a smaller measure of change. It made it the law of the church that if a majority of male heads of families, being communicants, objected to the settlement of a presentee as their minister, the presbytery were not to take him on trial for ordination. It appeared to Dr. Chalmers that it would have been well for the church before passing this law to have the authority of the Legislature in her support, but he was assured by lawyers of the highest eminence, including the law officers of the Crown, that there could not be a doubt as to the legal right of the church to enact this measure. Next year it was again brought forward, the motion in its favour being made by the first Lord Moncreiff. On this occasion it was carried, and became the law of the church; but events showed that it would have been well had the advice of Chalmers been followed before it was enacted; for it was on the very question of the competency of the church, as by law established, to enact it that the great conflict arose which, ten years after, rent the church in two.
It was impossible for Dr. Chalmers to be long in Edinburgh without having his attention turned to the religious wants of the people there. In the course of a local controversy, carried on with much bitterness, regarding the 'Annuity Tax'—an unpopular impost for defraying the salaries of the city ministers—a proposal had been made to abolish collegiate charges, and thus reduce the number of ministers from eighteen to thirteen. Chalmers had strongly protested against the proposal, and claimed in the interest of the city that the ministers set free from collegiate charges should be intrusted with new parishes, wherever additional churches were needed. Under the Town Council, things had been so managed that the incomes of the clergy had sunk to £400 a year; and the idea of new charges was unpopular, because the Council would have had to provide churches; this opposition grieved Chalmers, and the only consideration that comforted him (as he wrote to a friend) was the increased readiness of the friends of the church to contribute for its extension. For himself, he had hitherto been working in the Cowgate, in the hope that a new parochial charge would be set up for that district. But at the time (1834), the Town Council had refused to make the necessary arrangements for that purpose, although a few years later, the parish of St. John's was erected, and Dr. Guthrie appointed to it. Meanwhile, Dr. Chalmers resolved to transfer his attention to another needy and neglected district—the suburban village of Dean, or Water of Leith. He had good hopes that he would be able to erect a parochial economy there. The Assembly of that year had appointed him convener of a committee for church accommodation; and in the summer, besides encouraging local efforts, he tried to collect a central fund, for which in July he had made a beginning, having raised the sum of £1677, 10s. He had begun, as he said, with the higher kinds of game—dukes and marquises, but by and by he would come down to parochial associations and subscriptions of a penny a week. He believed that the 'ditchers' of the country properly cultivated might be found as productive as the 'dukes.' Anyhow, the moral influence would be greater, because every man that gave a penny a week would be sure to feel a lively interest in the cause.
And this was the beginning of that great scheme of church extension which for several years engrossed his energies, as it proved also the forerunner of his Free Church Sustentation Fund, which has proved such a monument of his financial sagacity and skill.
From Glasgow an important proposal had been made by his friend and former coadjutor, Mr. William Collins, that steps should be taken at once to add twenty churches to the Established Church. Thirteen years before, Chalmers had made the same proposal, but it had been scouted as visionary. Evidently his influence had been telling on the community. It was no longer a devout imagination. Mr. Collins and his friends resolved to take no steps in the way of building, till £20,000 should be subscribed. In the month of October that amount was realised. The success of this local effort gave a great impulse to the general scheme.
The proposal under the general scheme was, that the churches should be erected from voluntary contributions, but that the Government should grant a small endowment to each congregation towards its annual expenses. To promote this part of the scheme, a deputation was sent to London, to solicit the support of the Prime Minister and other influential members of the Government. At first it seemed as if Lord Melbourne and his cabinet would cordially agree to the proposal, but vehement opposition being offered to it by the dissenters, a change soon came over the spirit of their dream. Unwilling to offend an important section of their supporters in Scotland, they resolved, as a sort of compromise, to appoint a commission that should go over the country, take evidence as to the amount of the existing provision for the religious wants of the people, and report the results from time to time. It was a great disappointment to Dr. Chalmers that in this way a long delay would have to take place, and still more that the personnel of the commission showed a tendency unfavourable to the scheme. The commission buckled to their work, and at intervals issued reports which in the main bore out the contention of Dr. Chalmers. Then it was announced that a measure would be introduced; by and by it was said that that measure was abandoned. Dr. Chalmers and his friends were more favourably received by Sir Robert Peel and other leading Conservatives; but as they were not in power at the time nothing was done. The vacillating conduct of the Whig Government made no favourable impression on Chalmers: among his friends he was ready enough to proclaim, in his Fifeshire dialect, 'I have a moral loathing of thae Whugs.'
But if there was disappointment from the Government, there was extraordinary encouragement from the people. In 1838 he was able to announce to the General Assembly, as the fruit of four years' labour, that there had been added to the Establishment nearly two hundred churches, and that upwards of £200,000 had been contributed for their erection. It was a result wholly unprecedented, and on all hands was regarded with amazement, and as a most wonderful testimony to the eloquence and energy with which he had advocated the cause. Worn out, and much in need of rest though he felt himself to be, he was induced to remain for some time longer at the head of the committee, and among other labours he added that of a tour over the whole country, in which he advocated his plan with his usual eloquence. But, in the Forties, the shadow of the conflict between the civil and ecclesiastical courts had fallen on the Extension Scheme, and it began to languish. In the course of his convenership the progress of the undertaking had been as follows:—
In 1835, 62 churches, £65,620 1 11-¾
In 1836, 26 " 32,359 12 6-¾
In 1837, 67 " 59,311 6 0
In 1838, 32 " 41,183 1 1-¾
In 1839, 14 " 52,959 14 14-¾
In 1840, 15 " 36,055 8 8-¾
In 1841, 6 " 18,252 6 6-
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Total, 222 " £305,741 11 3-½