which that congregation was composed. He must also bring himself in contact with those of his parish who belonged to no congregation—the vicious, the reckless, the ignorant, and the poor—and endeavour, by his favourite process of "excavation," to bring them out from their murky concealments into the light of day, and the elevating influence of gospel ordinances. Twelve thousand souls to be visited!—but is not a soul worth looking after? To work therefore he went as soon as he became minister of the Tron church parish, undergoing an amount of bodily labour such as few would have cared to encounter, but resolute not to abandon the task until it was completed. A few weeks thus employed enabled him to ascertain what evils existed, as well as what remedies should be applied. It was necessary that the destitute and the outcast of his parish should be frequently visited, and for the performance of this duty he infused his own active spirit into the eldership by which he was surrounded. The fearful ignorance that was accumulating among the young of the lower orders must be dispersed; and, for this purpose, he organized a society among his congregation for the establishment of Sabbath-schools in the parish. These schools became so numerous, and so well attended, that in two years they numbered 1200 children, receiving regular religious instruction. A single close furnished the necessary amount of pupils for a school; and the teacher who visited its families for the purpose of bringing them out, was taught to watch over that little locality as his own especial parish.
This course of daily labour and visitation had its prospective, as well as immediate benefits. Dr. Chalmers had hitherto witnessed poverty and its results only upon a small scale. It was here a family, and there an individual, over the extent of a country parish; and for these cases, private benevolence and the contributions at the church door had generally been found sufficient. But now he was brought into close contact with poverty and destitution acting upon society in thousands, and producing an aggravation of crime, as well as misery, such as his rural experience had never witnessed. For all this, however, he was not wholly unprepared. He had already studied the subject in the abstract, and he found that now was the time, and here the field, to bring his theories on the subject into full operation. His idea, from all he witnessed, was but the more strongly confirmed, that the simple parochial apparatus of Scotland, so effectual for the relief of a village or country parish, would be equally efficacious for a populous city, and that recourse to poors'-rates and compulsory charity would only foster the evil which it aimed to cure. This conviction he now endeavoured to impress, not only in conversation and by public speeches, but also by his articles on "Pauperism" in the "Edinburgh Review," and a series of essays, which he afterwards published, on the "Civic and Christian Economy of Large Towns." But to go to the very source of poverty, and strike at once at the root, was his chief aim; and this could only be accomplished by indoctrinating the masses of a crowded city with the principles of Christian industry, independence, and morality. Even this, too, the parochial system had contemplated, by an adequate provision of church accommodation and instruction; but, unfortunately, while the population of the country had been nearly trebled, the church provision had remained stationary. The consequence was, that even in his own parish of the Tron, there were not a third who attended any church, notwithstanding the additional accommodation which dissent had furnished. And such, or still worse, was the state of matters over the whole of Glasgow. What he therefore wanted was "twenty more churches,
