376 CHALMERS of his works. In the purely ethical department, the dis cussions in which he made important and original contributions to the science are those occupied with the place and functions of volition and attention, the separate and underived character of the moral sentiments, and the distinction between the virtues of perfect and imperfect obligation. It was not so much, however, for their scientific speculations that his lectures in the moral philosophy class-room were distinguished, as for that- fervour of pro fessional enthusiasm with which they were delivered, and which proved so healthfully contagious. Beyond the intel lectual impulse thus communicated, his frequent references to the great doctrines of Christianity, and still more the force of his inviting example, kindled to a very remarkable degree the religious spirit among the students of St Andrews ; and not a few of them including many men who have since highly distinguished themselves were led thereby to consecrate their lives to missionary labour. In November 1828, Dr Chalmers was transferred from the chair of moral philosophy in St Andrews to that of theology in Edinburgh. In this wider theatre he was enabled to realize all his favourite ideas as to the best methods of academical instruction. To the old practice of reading to his students a set of carefully prepared lectures he added that of regular viva voce examination on what was thus delivered, and introduced besides the use of text books, communicating through them a large amount of in formation ; and coming into the closest and most stimulat ing contact with his pupils, he attempted to combine the different systems pursued in the English and the Scottish universities. In the professorial chair there have been many who, with larger stores of learning, have conducted their students to greater scientific proficiency ; but none have ever gone beyond him in the glowing impulse, intellectual, moral, and religious, that he conveyed into the hearts of tha ardent youths who flocked around his chair; and to that spirit with which he so largely impregnated the joung ministerial mind of Scotland, may, to a large extent, be traced the Disruption of the Scottish Established Church. The leisure for literary labour which professorial life afforded was diligently improved. At St Andrews he resumed the work which his departure from Glasgow had suspended, and in 1826 published a third volume of the Christian and Civic Economy of Large Towns. This was followed in 1827 by his treatise on the Use and Abuse of Literary and Ecclesiastical Endowments, the ablest defence of endowments in our language, a work which itself would have won celebrity for its author. For many years his chief ambition had been to complete a treatise on political Economy, a science which had been a favourite one from youth. In St Andrews, besides his ordinary course on ethics, he had opened a class for instruction in this science, and had been delighted to find how attractive it had proved. As soon as he had got through his first course of theological lectures in Edinburgh, he resumed this subject, and embodied the reflections and preparations of many years in a work on Political Economy, published in 1832. Many of the particular doctrines of this work have not met with general acceptance. The public mind, however, has been gradually coming round to a belief in that great truth which this volume was mainly intended to enforce, that a right moral is essential to a right economic condition of the masses, that character is the parent of comfort. His work on Political Economy was scarcely through the press, when, on invitation from the trustees of the earl of Bridgewater, Dr Chalmers was engaged on a treatise On the Adaptation of External Nature to ilia Moral and Intellectual Constitution of Man, which appeared in 1833. Literary honours, such as were never united previously in the person of any Scottish ecclesiastic, crowned these labours. In 1834 he was elected fellow of the Royal Society of Edin burgh, and was soon after made one of its vice-presidents. In the same year he was elected corresponding member of the Royal Institute of France, and in 1835 the university of Oxford conferred on him the degree of D.C.L. Hitherto Dr Chalmers had taken but little part in the public business of the church. He had given some effective help in the prosecution of two measures the one for the abolition of pluralities, and the other for the improvement of theological education. The death of Dr Andrew Thomson, who had long been the able leader of the Evangelical party, and the obtaining by that party of the ascendency, called him to lead the counsels and doings of the church. One of the earliest acts of the General Assembly of 1834, the first in which the Evangelical party had the majority, was to place Dr Chalmers at the head of a committee appointed to promote the extension of the church. In this office he had a double duty to discharge to solicit the Government to make a grant out of the public revenue, and to stimulate the friends of the church by their own voluntary efforts to meet the spiritual necessities of the country. In both departments extraordinary efforts were made, but with very different results. The Whig Government, insecure in its hold of power, and dependent to some extent on the political assistance of the Scottish Dissenters, could be induced to do nothing beyond appoint ing a committee of inquiry, which led to no practical result. It was otherwise when Dr Chalmers appealed to the country. That appeal was made with singular ardour and eloquence. When circulars, pamphlets, and reports had done their uttermost, he made a tour through a large part of Scotland, addressing the various presbyteries and hold ing public meetings in the most populous districts. Year after year swelled the fund that these efforts created, till at last in 1841, when he resigned his office as convener of the Church Extension Committee, he had to announce that in seven years upwards of 300,000 had been contributed to this object, and 220 new churches had been built. This great movement on behalf of church extension was finally checked by another in which Dr Chalmers was destined to play a still more conspicuous part. In 1834, the General Assembly, after declaring it to be a fundamental principle of the church that " no minister shall be intruded into any parish contrary to the will of the congregation," had enacted that in every instance the disssnt of the majority of the male heads of families, being communicants, should be a bar to the settlement of a minister. This Act, commonly called the Veto Law, was based upon the old constitutional practice of the "call," in which the people invited the minister to undertake the pastoral office, on which invitation alone the spiritual act of ordination was grounded. The church believed herself to possess the power of determining what kind and amount of popular concurrence was necessary before the pastoral tie was formed by ordination. She had often exercised that power to the effect of setting aside the nominee of the patron. When invited in such instances to interfere, the civil courts had refused, on the ground that the church was acting within the limits of her acknowledged authority. In other instances the civil courts had often reviewed decisions of the church courts, but only with a view of regulating the title to the benefice. But now the power of the church to pass such a law as that of the Veto was challenged, and the civil courts claimed a right not only to regulate the destination of the benefice, but to control and overrule the decisions of the church. In the parish of Auchterarder, containing a population of 3000 souls, only two individuals signed the call, while 287 out of 300 dissented ; but in an action raised at the instance of the
presentee, the Court of Session decided that his rejection by