It was in the last month of his life that he set out for London, to meet the Site Committee. On the 9th May 1847 he preached in Marylebone Presbyterian Church, 'with more comfort than I ever did in London.' After replying to the questions put by the committee through Mr. Maule, he encountered an onslaught from Sir James Graham, who came armed with a bundle of papers containing speeches, etc., of Chalmers, by means of which he thought to entangle him. After his long examination before Sir James appeared, Chalmers was somewhat exhausted, but he roused himself, and met him in the spirit of a practised warrior. The only point of importance raised by Sir James arose out of the London lectures, in which he had spoken very favourably of the Church of England. 'I told him that I did not advocate the Church of England; that I felt more hopeful of it then than now, when like to be overrun by Puseyism; that even then I denounced its figment of an Apostolical succession, and, without directly attacking its Erastianism, spoke of our own independence, and in terms which provoked the jealousy of English churchmen,' etc. etc. But a great part of the examination concerned the voting of women at the election of office-bearers and the like; a paltry question, as Dr. Chalmers called it, having no sort of reasonable connection with the refusal of sites. 'We concluded,' Dr. Chalmers wrote to his wife, 'in a state of great exhaustion, yet with an erect demeanour and visage unabashed.'
We conclude with a glimpse of his more private life in the few years preceding his death. Unwearied as he ever was in his endeavour to cultivate the affections of his children, and impress them with the most serious responsibilities of life, his interest in them seems only to have deepened as they grew up. He began a series of monthly letters to be addressed to each in succession, and carried it on for a considerable time. Two of his six daughters were married, but they were not excluded from the privilege of his fatherly correspondence. And by and by, a grandson, Thomas Chalmers Hanna, was old enough to receive letters fitted to interest him, and draw his affections to so loving a grandfather. It is strange, indeed, that any biographer of Chalmers should have represented him (as Mrs. Oliphant has done) as not showing social affection. 'My ever dear Anne,' 'My dearest Eliza,' 'My dearest Grace,' were his ordinary salutations, and the spirit of the letters corresponded to the address. Very touching is his letter to his eldest daughter on the death of a beloved infant. As for his grandson, he just revels in affection. 'Tell Tommy how much I love him, and pray for his being good.' On occasion of his last visit to London, he visited the widow of his brother James, and prayed with her; a likeness of his brother was shown him, and impressed him so much that it haunted him for days. This was the brother that had held himself so much aloof both from him and all the family.
In his last visit to his native Anstruther and its neighbourhood, in 1845, his unchanged and unchangeable affection for the scenes and friends of his youth showed a marvellous freshness and tenacity. Many are the stories of his pleasure in recalling memorials of the past. He hunted up an old schoolfellow, a tailor, and told him that he had been the first to acquaint him with the form of the earth. He congratulated another schoolfellow, who, like himself, had suffered from smallpox, that while other people's faces were 'aye getting the waur, theirs were always getting the better o' the wear!' He sought out the place where Lizzie Green's water-bucket used to stand, where he and his heated playfellows had often been allowed very kindly to slake their thirst. But most pathetic was his visit to the house of Barnsmuir. When he was some twelve or fourteen years old, the eldest daughter of that house had been in the habit of riding into Anstruther on a little pony, and Chalmers had conceived a deep and tender attachment to her, like that of Lord Byron for his Mary Duff. The young lady was married while he was at college, and she had died many years before this visit. At his special request her youngest sister met him at Barnsmuir. In the house, the remembrance of that early love came upon him with singular power; he asked respectfully about her life and death, and learned with deep emotion that she had died in the full Christian hope, and that some of his letters to her sister had soothed and comforted her. He then asked if there were any portrait of her, and being shown a profile, gazed on it with great earnestness, fixed his own card on the back of it, and, gazing on it again, gave expression to his strong affection, and burst into a flood of tears. It was a touching proof, as his biographer has said, that he was as much distinguished for the tenderness and tenacity of his attachments as for the brilliance of his gifts.
Dr. Chalmers was ever very simple, and yet in some respects singular, in his habits of life. Abstemious he was to a degree; ever watchful lest he should at any time be in a condition of body that would interfere with the activity of his intellectual and spiritual nature; at times, at least, practising total abstinence, and always great moderation in both food and drink. It was his usual practice to spend the early part of the day in composition and study; he so carefully excogitated his subjects that he was ever ready to use his pen, never obliged to loiter in order to form his plan or shape his thought, but able to write rapidly as soon as the pen was in his hand, and seldom or never correcting. His handwriting was anything but elegant, yet very characteristic; the upright letters, the firmness of each stroke, and the continuity of the whole indicating decision, force, and flow. So exact was his view, that he could calculate for weeks and months beforehand the rate of his progress and the day when each piece of writing would be finished. His remarkable calculating or counting faculty was brought into operation in what we should call fantastic ways. In stropping his razor, he would begin with two strokes, next day three, and so on till he reached a maximum number; then he would reverse the process and gradually diminish till he came back to two. In walking he put his staff to the ground regularly at each fourth step; counting, if he chose, the number of his steps, and able to keep count even if he should meet a friend and walk with him in animated conversation. When he lived in Inverleith Row he delighted to find new routes to the university, and ascertain and record their several lengths. One day, as he told a favourite student, he had been trying to find a near road between Comely Bank and Inverleith Row, but got entangled, as he put it in his original way, 'in the accessories of a farmhouse, where I was set upon by a mastiff, and so obliged to turn back.' We have noted his delight in ascending cathedral towers, and his invariable habit of counting the steps. At any famous stream he would lap the water, thus making the connection more intimate between the stream and himself. His love of order was remarkable, though one might not have supposed it from his general manner. It was through the power of orderliness that he was able to achieve all he did within the compass of his life. By varying his employments,—now writing, now visiting or attending meetings, now travelling, now preaching or lecturing, now entertaining friends, now reading and pondering, he kept himself comparatively fresh, and seemed at all times ready for new work. 'Nulla dies sine lineâ' might have been his motto, had it not been that every day had half a dozen linea in place of one.
His reading, after he became a professor, was considerable, partly in theological books, partly in books of practical religion, and to a small extent in general literature. So little direct sign of anything Shakespearean is there in his writings that it rather surprises us to find him recording towards the end of his life that he had completed an entire perusal of the great dramatist, as well as of Milton and Gibbon. He considered Shakespeare 'an intellectual miracle, the greatest man that ever lived.' His favourite piece was Midsummer Night's Dream, showing, as Dr. Peter Bayne has remarked, 'that after all the struggles and worries of his life, he still walked in the aerial gaiety, the many-tinted, summerlike beauty, the genial though keen sagacity of that poem. It is a very remarkable circumstance, telling of a gentleness of nature, a kind, gleesome humour, an exuberant, unstrained force and freshness of intellect, rarely seen among theologians.'
In the prosecution of his incessant labours, he was no doubt considerably helped by his sense of humour. He knew well the relaxation and the refreshment derived from a good laugh. Many a humorous story he used to tell. One of his favourite stories referred to a boor who was getting married, but was such a dolt that he could not give an answer to the questions of the minister. One of the man's neighbours who was present, chagrined at such want of manners, and desiring to give the fellow a needed lesson in etiquette, gave him a slap on the back, and said, 'Ye brute, can you no' boo to the minister?' And it mattered not if the story told against himself. When the astronomical discourses were delivered, Dr. Chalmers came on an honest woman who had been hearing one of them, and was curious to know what she could make of it. 'Weel, sir,' said the woman, 'I canna say that I understood ye a'thegether, but, O sir, there was something unco suitable and satisfyin' in your psalms!'
During his visit to London in connection with the Site Committee in May 1847, he had greatly enjoyed his intercourse with many friends—among them Isaac Taylor, James Hamilton, Baptist Noel, Mr. Morell, and Thomas Carlyle. He described Carlyle as 'a strong-featured man, and of strong sense. We were most cordial and coalescing, and he very complimentary and pleasant; but his talk was not at all Carlylish; much rather the plain and ordinary conversation of good, ordinary common-sense, with a deal of hearty laughing on both sides.' Chalmers greatly lamented the alienation which he saw between the churches and the body of literary and scientific men. He enlarged on 'localism' and the West Port; nothing was too hard for 'localism.' Carlyle remarked afterwards to a friend, 'What a wonderful old man Chalmers is! or, rather, he has all the buoyancy of youth. When so many of us are wringing our hands in hopeless despair over the vileness and wretchedness of the large towns, there goes the old man, shovel in hand, down into the dirtiest puddles of the West Port of Edinburgh, cleans them out, and fills the sewers with living waters. It is a beautiful sight.'
After a flying visit to Brighton, where he preached for one of his former students, he proceeded to Gloucestershire, and spent a happy time with his ever dear sister Jane. On Sunday he preached his last sermon in the Independent chapel of the Rev. Mr. Dove, from the text Isaiah xxvii. 4, 5. A brief visit was paid at Darlington at the house of Mr. and Mrs. Backhouse, 'a most delicious abode.' He was profoundly interested in Mrs. Backhouse's account of the heavenly state of mind of her father for some time before his death; while Mrs. Backhouse was herself deeply struck with the very same spirit in him. During this visit the whole of his journal letters had been addressed to his wife; on Thursday (the 27th) he wrote to her, 'This is my last sheet. To-morrow evening I expect to see you by the favour of Him whose right hand preserves us continually, and for whose grace on us all I ever pray.—I ever am, my dearest Grace, yours most affectionately, Thomas Chalmers.'
He arrived at his house in Morningside on the Friday evening (2 8th May), apparently in his usual health and strength. On the following morning, at breakfast, his conversation was as lively and vigorous as ever. The forenoon of the Saturday was occupied in preparing the College Report, which he was to give in on Monday to the General Assembly. On the Sabbath morning he conversed freely with the Rev. Mr. Gemmel, who was staying at his house; afterwards with Dr. Cunningham; then attended afternoon service in Morningside Free Church, and on his way home called on Mrs. Coutts, an old Fifeshire friend, of high Christian character. Part of the evening was spent in writing to his sister, Mrs. Morton, and in conversation with Mr. Gemmel. His family never saw him more genial and happy. After worship, he bade his family remember that they must be early to-morrow; then he waved his hand and said, 'A general good-night.'
On the following morning he was found dead in bed. It seemed likely, from the state of the body, that his spirit had departed soon after he lay down. There was not the slightest trace of struggle, either on the face or in the attitude of the body. Never did death give a lighter touch.