lishments, to which he assented. Thus mysteriously was he led by a way which he knew not to a termination which he had not anticipated. He was to raise his eloquent voice for the last time in behalf of a cause which he was soon after to leave for ever—and to leave only because a higher, holier, and more imperative duty commanded his departure.
This visit of Dr. Chalmers to London was made in the spring of 1838. He took with him a course of lectures on which he had bestowed the utmost pains; and the first, which he delivered on the 25th of April, was attended by the most distinguished in rank and talent, who admired the lecturer, as well as sympathized in his subject. The other discourses followed successively, and seldom has great London been stirred from its mighty depths as upon these occasions. Peers, prelates, statesmen, literati, the powerful, the noble, the rich, the learned, all hurried pell-mell into the passages, or were crowded in one living heap in the ample hall; and all eyes were turned upon the homely-looking elderly man who sat at the head, before a little table, at times looking as if buried in a dream, and at others, lifting up his eyes at the gathering and advancing tide, composed of England's noblest and best, as if he wondered what this unwonted stir could mean. How had such a man collected such a concourse? That was soon shown, when, after having uttered a few sentences, with a pronunciation which even his own countrymen deemed uncouth, he warmed with his subject, until his thoughts seemed to be clothed with thunder, and starting to his feet, the whole assembly rose with him as one man, passed into all his feelings, and moved with his every impulse, as if for the time they had implicitly resigned their identity into his hands, and were content to be but parts of that wondrous individual in whose utterance they were so absorbed and swallowed up. "The concluding lecture," says one writer, "was graced by the presence of nine prelates of the Church of England. The tide that had been rising and swelling each succeeding day, now burst all bounds. Carried away by the impassioned utterance of the speaker, long ere the close of some of his finest passages was reached, the voice of the lecturer was drowned in the applause, the audience rising from their seats, waving their hats above their heads, and breaking out into tumultuous approbation." "Nothing was more striking, however," writes another, "amidst all this excitement, than the child-like humility of the great man himself. All the flattery seemed to produce no effect whatever on him; his mind was entirely absorbed in his great object; and the same kind, playful, and truly Christian spirit, that so endeared him to us all, was everywhere apparent in his conduct. . . . I had heard Dr. Chalmers on many great occasions, but probably his London lectures afforded the most remarkable illustrations of his extraordinary power, and must be ranked amongst the most signal triumphs of oratory in any age."
Having thus delivered such a solemn and public testimony in behalf of Church Establishments, Dr. Chalmers now resolved to visit France, a duty which he conceived he owed to the country, as he had been elected a member of its far-famed Royal Institute. He accordingly went from England to Paris in the earlier part of June, 1838, accompanied by his wife and two daughters. From the journal which he kept on the occasion, much interesting information may be gleaned of his views on the state of France and French society, while throughout, it is evident that he carried with him what our English tourists too seldom transport into that conntry—the willingness to recognize and readiness to acknowledge whatever superiority it possesses over our own. He thus
