His Professorial Function. 231 the present times, does not yet need to be carried a stage or two farther still. Much was done also - (we need not doubt it)-by Dr. Chalmers from the Chair, and in the course of his personal communications with his students, to loosen from their minds that overweening regard to the religious usages peculiar to Scotland, which has operated to encase its ministers in their ecclesiastical nationality. His frequent visits to England, and the felicitous friendships which resulted from his intercourse with the ministers and lay members of the Episcopal Church, produced in himself a cordial, and very unreserved recognition of the fact that the highest order of piety may, and does flourish, beneath the shadow of Episcopacy; and that a worship thoroughly spiritual may consist with, and does express itself through, a liturgy. Breadth of feeling, breadth of view, an all-embracing grasp of whatever matters might be before him, and, in a word, a statesman's comprehensiveness, a statesman's sagacity, a statesman's power of continuous attention to details, while retentive of his larger purposes, and ulterior projects, these, as we think, were those characteristics of Chalmers's mind, which, as more or less prominently developed in the class-room, were slowly, and through the course of his twenty years of professorial life, coming to bear upon the rising ministerial body in Scotland, giving to it, not merely a new and extraordinary impulse, but what was not less needed, a far more freely developed Christian intelligence than had heretofore belonged to it. The word which Chalmers might have addressed to the young mind of Scotland, as from year to year it came under his training, was of this sort, (using a little paraphrastic license) - "For God, at this time, and in preparation for the great movements in which we are to act our parts, has not given us the spirit of bondage, and of straitness, and of inferential scrupulosity; but the spirit of love, of power, and of a sound mind." If any zealous admirer of this great man were to come forward, and to allege, in his praise, certain specific services which he had rendered to philosophy, in carrying forward, as a teacher, moral and theological science, (or political science,) in the first place, the bringing forward a claim of this sort might perhaps impel us to demur as to certain particulars; but more than this, we should feel that, in so doing, the panegyrist was taking up a questionable, instead of an unquestionable ground of commendation. For, whether or not Dr. Chalmers, as Professor of moral philosophy, or of theology, has materially advanced sacred and ethical science, it is quite certain that, from his chair, he did render a service to his country which was of incomparably higher importance and value; inasmuch, as he sent forth over as its surface, a body of men, who, if they turn not aside from the path whereon he set them forward, may, and with God's help, will, bring about, within the enclosure of of the Establishment, well as outside of it, the Christian Regeneration of Scotland. To do this, Chalmers was given to Scotland. Let her see to it then, that the mission of a man whom she delights to name, does not fail of its effect! The view which we have thus been led to take of Dr. Chalmers's position, while he was occupying academic chairs, would naturally extend itself over the wider field of which he took possession, before the world, as a writer, strenuously and effectively maintaining a certain scheme of doctrines, in political economy, and in its related practical subjects. What those doctrines specifically were, we may find opportunity in a future article to state; and may then, perhaps, venture to advance an opinion as to their quality and value. But at present we may well hold off from all such questions. As a writer upon political economy, upon municipal administration, and upon the statistics of Christian benevolence, Chalmers stands before us-and in this light we think he will appear to the men of the next age, not as the originator, or peculiarly, as the furtherer of SCIENCE; but as the man who, with a suasive power, and a practical efficiency, unequalled, certainly not surpassed by any man of his times, gave an impulse to that altogether modern mood of Christian benevolence which concerns itself with the wellbeing, temporal and spiritual, of the industrial classes, and of the class below these. This recent product of Christianity, (a product so worthy of it, and so congenial,) this mighty force, working in the bosoms of the privileged-the favoured-the provided for, and which forbids them to slumber upon their comforts, while thousands of their kindred are in extremity of suffering, this modern businesssouled benevolence, destined as it yet is, to bring about noiseless renovations throughout the human system, shifting the position of all things, and giving a new form and colour to all, was in a transition state at the moment of Chalmers's coming before the world, for it was just then in course of movement to return upon its true foundations. A word will suffice to explain what we mean. At length, that is to say, at a time of which some now surviving, may retain a recollection, there took place a sudden movement in HADES. The long rejected, or rather let us say it, the long postponed prayer of DIVES came to be favourably listened to, and LAZARUS, gladly springing upon his feet, left Abraham's bosom on a mission of mercy, and coming up upon earth, he visited in turn the palaces of the "five brethren" His Function as a Systematic Philanthropist. 233 of the man who, in his time, had thoughtlessly "fared sumptuously every day." This ghostly messenger, drawing aside the silken curtains of each of these men of indulgence, whispered an alarm in the drowsy ear of each, and flitted away, and returned to his place in Paradise; but it was enough; for a consciencepanic had stirred the deepest impulses of these awakened men, and they shook off their sloth, and went forth among their fellows with an earnest purpose, the world wondering after them, in seeing so new a thing-the rich, the noble, the refined, the philosophic, not as if wrought upon by a fitful and romantic sympathy, which must soon exhaust itself; but effectively roused for labour in behalf of the forgotten millions of the people. The rich man's "five brethren" were, as we have said, at that time, thus awakened from their slumber of selfish ease. - The Man of golden heaps had thus been "pricked to the heart," and the strings of his bags were loosened. The Man of earthly joyousness had taken alarm also, and had sickened of his pleasures. New schemes were put on paper in the counting-house of the Man of business, the British merchant, for he had listened to the same call. The Man of science and of literature also found purposes more noble than the winning of immortality in the temple of fame; and, most to be wondered at, not least to be admired, was the Statesman who, snatching moments from cares he might not abandon, listened to proposals which, heretofore he would have scorned ; and he gave his serviceable counsels to the movers of every scheme of beneficence. In its earlier season of development, this systematic, or organized philanthropy expressed itself in relation, chiefly to those physical evils that affect humanity; and, particularly, to certain definite classes of suffering; thence it went forward toward a more refined concernment for the moral and spiritual destitution of the lower classes; and thence it ripened into its most recent condition, which takes the practical form of ecclesiastical organization, and which embraces the two elements in an adjusted administration of aid and reform, at once spiritual and physical. The process of transition, not easily detected in a conspicuous form at any one moment, becomes evident when we look at the public career of individuals who stand a few years remote from each other. Thus, for instance, if we compare Howard's visitation of the prisons of Europe, with Elizabeth Fry's labours among the incarcerated wretches of her time, we cannot but note the indications of a progress in public feeling, which is full of meaning. The sighing of the prisoner which Howard had listened to, and to which he had compelled the world to give some heed, had at length come to waken up a more searching and deep-going compassion, and to instigate endeavours for alleviating those of his woes, of which the prisoner himself was regardless. In a manner analogous to this, and as indicative of a silent but momentous advancement of the Christian spirit, from its rudimental toward its more reflex and more refined expression, the labours of Wilberforce and Clarkson, and of their successors, in behalf of the negro race-labours which are yet waiting to reach their desired consummation-were followed by the great evangelizing enterprises of the time that is now just gone by; and these have been succeeded by those ecclesiastical and colonizing organizations which, under forms so various, have undertaken to administer the funds of voluntary zeal. Chalmers, as a Political Economist, and more distinctly as the mover of municipal and parochial schemes of beneficent labour, and again, as the champion of Establishments, and as the vindicator of Endowments, and still more decisively as the Founder and Economist of a Church-National, though not Established, fulfilled a function incalculably more fruitful of good toward the inasses of the people, than could have been the concocting, and the divulging, and the defence of any new scheme of doctrines in philosophy. Although, therefore, we may hereafter ask, what his philosophy was, and wherein distinguished from that which he found ready to his hand, the answer to such an inquiry is, in our view, unimportant when compared with the fact, that so powerful a mind, impelled by the warmest philanthropy, and informed by Christian principles, came forward to guide the minds of his countrymen, during the season of an extraordinary convulsion. Chalmers's moment, as a political and ecclesiastical economist, was precisely that juncture in the history of Christian benevolence, when a two-fold revulsion was coming about in the world of religious and political feeling. In the first place, the vague and ill-considered, although true-hearted missionary fervour which had rushed out upon the remote wilderness of heathenism, knowing scarcely what it intended, and unprepared to meet the sharp disappointments it had provoked, was beginning to collapse, and to think upon its ways; and was, in a somewhat more hopeful manner, applying itself to the vast enterprise before it, under the guidance of dearly-bought experience. But then, in the second place, there was coming on a not less needed and an incalculably momentous revolution, at least in the best constituted minds, which thus expressed itself in tones of selfreproach and amazement :-" We are expending vast revenues, and we are sacrificing the best lives, in the endeavour to Christianize the far-off heathenism of this heathen world; --but we have, meantime, nearly forgotten the fact that, thick around us on every His Function as a Systematic Philanthropist. 235 hand, there is a heathenism more virulent in its quality than any which elsewhere, throughout all the world, we shall find-the heathenism of our fellow-citizens, of our nearest neighbours!" Now the structure of Chalmers's mind, and the decisive tendency of his dispositions, fitted him, peculiarly, for assenting to, and for helping forward, this two-fold revulsion of the religious mind. If a fervent benevolence has ever glowed in a human bosom, it did in his; and he was susceptible also of that species of excitement to which, in a qualified sense, the term enthusiasm may be rightfully applied. But, then, with this preparation of the heart, there was conjoined a most robust good sense, an impatience of sentimental inanities-a scorn of unproductive popular agitations-a far-seeing sagacity, as to the workings of any scheme which involves the ordinary impulses of human nature; and withal an extraordinary power of intellect in dealing with, and in reducing to order, the details of " matters of business," which placed him always at the post of difficulty, whenever arduous undertakings were in view. Chaliners wanted few, if any, of those natural endowments which might have made him an able minister of State. As thus qualified, then, it was that he put his Hercules shoulder to the wheel of Christian beneficence, at the very moment when the mindless fervour of its spring season was passing on towards a ripened condition of considerate and instructed energy. It was as fraught with these impulsive feelings, and as furnished with these rich mental endowments, that Chalmers gave himself to his favourite subjects-political economy and municipal administration, and, at length to the religious Establishment question; and it was thus, too, shewing himself as a man, and as a clergyman, alive to every call of duty and humanity, that he engaged in those extraordinary ministerial labours which distinguished his discharge of the pastoral office at Glasgow. Of these labours it could answer no purpose which we have in view here, to take account. Every young man, henceforward devoting himself to the work of the Christian ministry, will take care to make himself fully acquainted, by perusal and study of the volumes before us, with the details of a ministry so instructive. How exciting, and how salutary a tendency is the example therein held up of ministerial devotedness, and of that true and high tone of feeling which leads a man so thoroughly to forget himself and his popularity, while he thinks only of the miseries and the degradations which a faithful discharge of his duties may, in some measure, alleviate or redress! Political economist he was and so he stood before the world, and so did he shine in his honours, as member of the French Institute, and the like. But he was an economist, because a fervent philanthropist; and |