Thomas Chalmers

by William Garden Blaikie

In a funeral sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Lindsay Alexander, the mode of his departure was beautifully idealised. He recalled a passage in one of Dr. Chalmers's sermons, in which he fancies a man 'standing on the margin of this green world,' and feeling himself very closely bound to 'the region of sense, and of life, and of society'; but suddenly arrested by seeing some happy island of the blest floating past, 'in the light of its surpassing glories, and its sounds of sweeter melody, and a purer beauty resting on every field': discerning also in its inhabitants 'a peace, and a piety, and a benevolence that put a moral gladness into every bosom, and united the whole society in rejoicing sympathy with each other, and with the beneficent Father of them all'; observing, moreover, signals of welcome for himself, and an open pathway of communication to the island; insomuch that he is captivated by the sight; earth becomes a wilderness, and 'the land of invitation' attracts him with irresistible power.

'With this grand passage in my mind,' said Dr. Lindsay Alexander,' I could not but fancy him who uttered it, as realising at the moment of his departure some of the features of the case here supposed. I pictured to myself how, when the premonitory touch of the Destroyer broke his slumbers, he might imagine for a moment that he had been summoned to his appointed work, and how, casting his eye upon the materials he had prepared, he might begin to turn, with no reluctant emotion, his thoughts upon the duties with which he was charged; but in an instant another scene burst upon his view; a brighter radiance than that of the morning sun fell upon his brow; sweeter voices than those of wife or child broke upon his ear; a grander career of service than any earth could furnish stretched before him; the hand of One more glorious far than any child of man hung out to him the signals of welcome; and, as he gazed, he acknowledged the superior claims of that brighter world, and laid himself meekly down, and so his spirit passed rejoicingly away, leaving his earthly tabernacle with a smile upon the lips, and not one shade of suffering on the brow.'

On that Monday morning, the General Assembly met to receive his College Report. When the sad news came, the shock was so overwhelming that it would have been impossible to look at business, even if respect for his memory had not demanded an adjournment. As men recovered somewhat from the first shock, the sense of bereavement, of impoverishment, of widowhood, grew the greater. There were many men of extraordinary gifts in that Assembly, but who was there to be named with him?

An unprecedented concourse of mourners, much greater than had ever been seen at an Edinburgh funeral, followed his body to the grave. And from every pulpit, and from other quarters innumerable, the most respectful and cordial tributes were paid to his memory. It was felt that since the days of Knox no such man had been known in the Scottish church. His greatness was shown alike by what he was and what he had done. He seemed to combine the orator and the statesman, the ecclesiastic and the patriot, the philosopher and the poet, the scientist and the saint. No man had ever been so run after as a pulpit orator. No man of his day had ever conceived so great undertakings or done so much to realise them. His two hundred churches astonished every one; his Sustentation Fund astonished still more. With theology in the forefront, his horizon included philosophy, physical science, social science, political economy, and literature; and for each and all of these he found a place and a use in the Kingdom of God. And with all his greatness he was simple as a child. Like his Master, 'he made himself of no reputation'—never sought great things for himself. The world, and even the church, hardly knew how near he lived to God—how much he had of the saint. He was known to be very affable and affectionate, but the depth and tenderness of his affection, especially for his own family, were hardly suspected. When it was announced that, with all his gifts and graces, he had passed from among his brethren, it seemed as if the brightest star in the firmament had ceased to shine.

It is an interesting question—if Chalmers had been alive at the present day, what would he have thought of the position of the different branches of the Scottish church, and what counsel would he have given to them on the subject of union?

To answer these questions we must bear two things in mind: first, that he held the recent treatment of the church by the civil courts, and virtually by the state itself, to be destructive of her liberty and her life, insomuch that it had become an absolute necessity to abandon connection with the state; but, second, that he held the state bound to contribute to the support of the church, and the Free Church bound to return to her old connection, provided the liberty should be restored and practically secured of which she had been unrighteously deprived.

Would he, then, have held that liberty to be now restored, and the way to an honourable, safe, and beneficial alliance reopened? We doubt it. He would certainly have seen that, in point of fact, the Established Church now enjoys a degree of liberty that enables her to discharge the ordinary functions of a Christian church without obstruction, and in particular to continue with great success that very enterprise of church extension for which he thought that she would be able to do nothing. But he could not have failed to see that this liberty was an indirect fruit of the Disruption, and that it was quietly conceded to the Established Church in order that she might stand practically on the same platform of liberty with the nonconformist churches, and especially her great rival the Free Church. He would have found no concession of principle, no acknowledgment by the state or by the civil courts of an essential difference between a Christian church and a civil corporation, and no acknowledgment that the church, as the creation of Christ, enjoyed privileges from Him independent of any state. He would have found no repudiation of the dictum of the then Lord President that the Established Church had no jurisdiction whatever in the country except what had been conferred by the state; and he would have found no security that if a new collision should occur between church and state, between the worldly and the spiritual power, the state would repudiate her old principles and policy.

Further, the contention of Chalmers in his London lectures and in his latest deliverance (see p. [148]) always was, that the state ought to support religion, not merely because people wished it, but because the religion was true. Would he, then, have found in the members of the present Parliament any such value for revealed truth, as such, as would have given him confidence in them as its guardians? A Parliament that numbered Agnostics, Jews, Roman Catholics, Unitarians, and what not among its members—how could such a body be a nursing-father or a nursing-mother to the Christian church? Such a Parliament could not safely be intrusted with its guardianship. It was a very different condition of things when the Scottish church allied itself to the Scottish Parliament, all or nearly all being members of the church. Nor could he have found any cause for believing that at any future time, within reasonable distance, the nursing of the church could be safely committed to parliamentary hands.

But what then? There were three great Presbyterian churches in Scotland, with much of their resources wasted through division, but capable, by reasonable arrangements, of so combining their forces that his grand object—the bringing of all Scotland under the influence of Christian teaching—might at the least be greatly advanced. We can hardly conceive of any other advice that Chalmers would have given than that the vinculum of state-connection should be severed, and all the three churches should unite, and rouse themselves for one great, sustained, imperial effort to turn the country into the garden of the Lord. But what of the endowments? It is just as difficult for us to conceive that he would have been in favour of alienating them to secular purposes. No, he would have said, that is not necessary, and should not be; keep them for their original purpose, and place them under some public management, so that every congregation of the united body may have a share of them, if it please. This was certainly his feeling in a somewhat parallel case. In 1833, when the Irish Church Reform Bill was under discussion, Chalmers wrote to his sister, Mrs. Morton, 'I am relieved by the bill, the only flaw in it (although that may be one of deadly mischief) being the secularisation of the sum which they expect from the sale of church lands.'[⁶] We can readily conceive how the great soul of Chalmers would have expanded once more, and his face beamed as the hope arose anew, that even yet his beloved country might realise his magnificent ideal, and, by God's blessing on the labours of a united church, its waste and desolate places might yet blossom as the rose.

No doubt, Chalmers died a disappointed man, so far as his great scheme for the good of his country was concerned. He failed, and yet he did not fail.