234 CHALMERS Edinburgh, May 31, 1847. His father was a shipowner and general merchant. Destined for the church, he was sent at the age of 12 to the university of St. Andrews, where his fa- vorite studies were mathematics, ethics, and political economy. In his 19th year he received a preacher's license in the Scottish church, but declined to assume a pastorate, and spent the two subsequent winters in Edinburgh, where he was employed in teaching while pursuing a wide range of study under Dugald Stewart, Robinson, Playfair, and other professors. From assistant minister in a small parish he became in 1803 minister at Kilmany, Fifeshire, at the same time lecturing upon mathematics and chemistry at St. Andrews and gaining rep- utation as a savant. In 1804 and 1805 he ap- plied unsuccessfully for professorships of natu- ral philosophy at St. Andrews and of mathe- matics at Edinburgh. His first effort in au- thorship was a pamphlet to prove that the vig- orous prosecution of science was not incom- patible with ministerial duties and habits. On Napoleon's menace of invading England, Chal- mers joined a corps of volunteers both as chap- lain and lieutenant. In 1808, upon the alarm created by Napoleon's decrees against British commerce, he published his " Inquiry into the Extent and Stability of National Resources," to show that the apprehensions were 'ground- less. He had already become a contributor to the "Edinburgh Encyclopaedia," and the arti- cle on Christianity was assigned to him. While preparing this article, amid many domestic bereavements and a long and severe illness in 1809, which brought him near to the grave, he experienced a great spiritual change, and upon his recovery displayed a fervor in the pulpit and in his household visitations which was new to his parishioners. Cherishing scientific and literary studies with the same ardor as before, and contributing to the " Christian Instructor " and the "Eclectic Review," yet all his thoughts were tempered by a deep sense of religion. Having before belonged to the "moderate" party in the Scottish church, he now ranked with the " evangelical " party, which was in the minority, and his pulpit eloquence attract- ed listeners from great distances, and made him famous through the south of Scotland. In 1812 he married, and his wife, who survived him, bore him six children. In 1813 his article on Christianity appeared in the " Encyclo- paedia," and was immediately republished in a separate volume, with additions, under the title of "Evidences of Christianity." During the next two years he was busily engaged in organizing Bible and missionary societies, with a view to providing for the spiritual and general improvement of all his parishioners. He wrote about this time for the periodical press on missions and on Cuvier's theory of the earth. In 1815 he became minister of Tron parish, Glasgow, and during the eight years of his residence in that city he enjoyed unrivalled re- nown, as a pulpit orator. The " Astronomical Discourses," a series of weekly lectures on the connection between the discoveries of astrono- my and the Christian revelations, were pub- lished in 1817, and within a year nearly 20,000 copies of them were sold. His fame had mean- time extended from Scotland to London, where he preached first in this year. In a time of high political excitement all parties thronged to hear him. Canning and Wilberforce went together. The latter wrote in his diary : " Canning was at first disappointed by the preacher's peculiar manners, but at the end of the sermon he said to Wilberforce, ' The tartan beats us ; we have no preaching like that in Eng- land.' " The article on " Pauperism" contrib- uted to the " Edinburgh Review " immediately after his return to Scotland, and the tracts on the " Christian and Civic Economy of Large Towns," which soon followed, indicate what was then the direction of his efforts. It was his aim by a thorough organization to revive the old parochial system of Scotland, and, by dividing the community into small manageable masses, to bring every member of it directly under educational and ecclesiastical influences. To apply his scheme, he exchanged the Tron parish for the neighboring one of St. John's (1819), in which out of 2,000 families there were more than 800 unconnected with any Christian church, and a countless number of untaught children. The entire management of the poor in that parish was committed into his hands as an experiment, and by strict pa- rochial oversight the entire pauper expenditure was reduced in four years from 1,400 to 280 per annum. Every street and lane was visited periodically by his agents and teachers. In this great labor Edward Irving, then in the beginning of his career, was his assistant. Dr. Chalmers had never ceased to aspire to a pro- fessorship in one of the Scottish universities, and in January, 1828, he accepted a call to the chair of moral philosophy in the university of St. Andrews. In this oifice he remained five years, and its literary results were his " Lectures on Moral Philosophy," and his work on "Political Economy in con- nection with the Moral Aspects of Society." He had given a new intellectual impulse to the studies in his department, when in 1828 he was transferred from St. Andrews to the chair of divinity in the university of Edinburgh, where he remained during the next 15 years. In 1830 he was appointed royal chaplain. He carried his eloquence and enthusiasm into the class room, which was filled not with students alone, but with clergymen of vari- ous denominations and eminent literary and scientific men. In 1833 he published his Bridgewater treatise on the " Adaptation of External Nature to the Moral and Intellectual Constitution of Man;" in 1838 he delivered a course of lectures in London in defence of church establishments ; and after a short visit to France he travelled through Scotland, to lecture and collect funds in behalf of the move-
