THOMAS CHALMERS’ TEXT

I.

It was a mystery. Nobody in Kilmany could understand it. They were people of the flock and the field, men of the plough and the pasture. There were only about one hundred and fifty families scattered across the parish, and such social life as they enjoyed all circled round the kirk. They were all very fond of their young minister, and very proud of his distinguished academic attainments. Already, in his preaching, there were hints of that ‘sublime thunder’ that afterwards rolled through the world. In his later years it was said of him that Scotland shuddered beneath his billowy eloquence as a cathedral vibrates to the deep notes of the organ. He became, as Lord Rosebery has testified, the most illustrious Scotsman since John Knox. But his farmer-folk at Kilmany could not be expected to foresee all this. They felt that their minister was no ordinary man; yet there was one thing about him that puzzled every member of the congregation. The drovers talked of it as they met each other on the long and lonely roads; the women discussed it as they waited outside the kirk whilst their husbands harnessed up the horses; the farmers themselves referred to it wonderingly when they talked things over in the stockyards and the market-place.

Mr. Chalmers was only twenty- three. He had matriculated at twelve; had become a divinity student at fifteen; and at nineteen had been licensed to preach. Now that, with much fear and trembling, he had settled at Kilmany, he made a really excellent minister. He has himself told us that, as he rode about his parish, his affections flew before him. He loved to get to the firesides of the people, and he won from old and young their unstinted admiration, their confidence and their love. But for all that, the mystery remained. Briefly stated, it was this : Why did he persist in preaching to these decent, well- meaning and law-abiding Scottish farmers in a strain that implied that they ought all to be in gaol? Why, Sabbath after Sabbath, did he thunder at them concerning the heinous wickedness of theft, of murder, and of adultery? After a hard week’s work in field and stable, byre and dairy, these sturdy Scotsmen drove to the kirk at the sound of the Sabbath bell, only to find themselves rated by the minister as though they had spent the week in open shame! They filed into their family pews with their wives and their sons and their daughters, and were straightway charged with all the crimes in the calendar! Later on, the minister himself saw both the absurdity and the pity of it. It was, as he told the good people of Kilmany, part of his bitter self-reproach that, for the greater part of the time he spent among them, ‘I could expatiate only on the meanness of dishonesty, on the villainy of falsehood, on the despicable arts of calumny, in a word, upon all those deformities of character which awaken the natural indignation of the human heart against the pests and disturbers of human society.’ Now and again, the brilliant and eloquent young preacher turned aside from this line of things in order to denounce the designs of Napoleon. But as the Fifeshire farmers saw no way in which the arguments of their minister were likely to come under the notice of the tyrant and turn him from his fell purpose of invading Britain, they were as much perplexed by these sermons as by the others. This kind of thing continued without a break from 1803 until 1811 ; and the parish stood bewildered. 

II.

From 1803 until 1811! But what of the four years that followed? For he remained at Kilmany until 1815 — the year of Waterloo! Let me set a second picture beside the one I have already painted! Could any contrast be greater? The people were bewildered before : they were even more bewildered now! The minister was another man: the kirk was another place! During those closing years at Kilmany, Mr. Chalmers thundered against the grosser crimes no more. He never again held forth from his pulpit against the iniquities of the Napoleonic programme. But every Sunday he had something fresh to say about the love of God, about the Cross of Christ, and about the way of salvation. Every Sunday he urged his people with tears to repent, to believe, and to enter into life everlasting. Every Sunday he set before them the beauty of the Christian life, and, by all the arts of eloquent persuasion, endeavoured to lead his people into it. ‘He would bend over the pulpit,’ writes one who heard him both before and after the change, ‘he would bend over the pulpit and press us to take the gift, as if he held it that moment in his hand and would not be satisfied till every one of us had got possession of it. And often, when the sermon was over, and the psalm was sung, and he rose to pronounce the blessing, he would break out afresh with some new entreaty, unwilling to let us go until he had made one more effort to persuade us to accept it.’

Now here are the two pictures side by side — the picture of Chalmers during his first eight years at Kilmany, and the picture of Chalmers during his last four years there ! The question is : What happened in 1811 to bring about the change? 

III

That is the question; and the answer, bluntly stated, is that, in 1811, Chalmers was converted! 

He made a startling discovery — the most sensational discovery that any man ever made. He had occupied all the years of his ministry on the Ten Commandments; he now discovered, not only that there are more commandments than ten, but that the greatest commandments of all are not to be found among the ten! The experience of Chalmers resembles in many respects the experience of the Marquis of Lossie. Readers of George Macdonald’s Malcolm will never forget the chapter on ‘The Marquis and the Schoolmaster.’ The dying m’arquis sends for the devout schoolmaster, Mr. Graham. The schoolmaster knows his man, and goes cautiously to work. 

‘Are you satisfied with yourself, my lord?’ 

‘No, by God!’ 

‘You would like to be better ?’ 

‘Yes; but how is a poor devil to get out of this infernal scrape?’ 

‘Keep the commandments!’ 

‘That’s it, of course; but there’s no time!’ 

‘If there were but time to draw another breath, there would be time to begin !’ 

‘How am I to begin? Which am I to begin with?’ 

‘There is one commandment which includes all the rest !’ 

‘Which is that?’ 

‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt he saved!’ 

When the Marquis of Lossie passed from the ten commandments to the commandment that includes all the ten, he found the peace for which he hungered, and, strangely enough, Chalmers entered into life in a precisely similar way. 

IV 

‘I am much taken,’ he says in his journal, in May, 1811, ‘I am much taken with Walker’s observation that we are commanded to believe on the Son of God!’

Commanded! 

The Ten Commandments ! 

The Commandment that includes all the Commandments! 

‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved!’

That was the Marquis of Lossie’s text, and it was Chalmers’. 

At about this time, he was overtaken by a serious illness. He always regarded those days of feebleness and confinement as the critical days in his spiritual history. Long afterwards, when the experience of the years had shown that the impressions then made were not transitory, he wrote to his brother giving him an account of the change that then overtook him. He describes it as a great revolution in all his methods of thought. *I am now most thoroughly of opinion,’ he goes on, ‘that on the system of “Do this and live!” no peace can ever be attained. It is “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt he saved!” When this belief enters the heart, joy and confidence enter along with it!’

‘Thus,’ says Dr. Hanna in his great biography of Chalmers, ‘thus we see him stepping from the treacherous ground of “Do and live!” to place his feet upon the firm foundation of “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt he saved!” ‘ Do! — The Ten Commandments — that was his theme at Kilmany for eight long years! Believe! — The Commandment that includes all the Commandments — that was the word that transformed his life and transfigured his ministry! ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved!’

The result of that change we have partly seen. But only partly. We have seen it from the point of view of the pew. We have seen the farmer- folk of Kilmany astonished as they caught a new note in the minister’s preaching, a new accent in the minister’s voice. But we must see the change from the point of view of the pulpit. And, as seen from the pulpit, the result of the transformation was even more surprising and sensational. Chalmers alone can tell that story, and we must let him tell it in his own way. The twelve years at Kilmany — the eight before the change, and the four after it — have come to an end at last; and, at a special meeting called for the purpose, Mr. Chalmers is taking a sorrowful farewell of his first congregation. The farmers and their wives have driven in from far and near. Their minister has been called to a great city charge; they are proud of it; but they find it hard to give him up. The valedictory speeches have all been made, and now Mr. Chalmers rises to reply. After a feeling acknowledgement of the compliments paid him, he utters one of the most impressive and valuable testimonies to which any minister ever gave expression.

‘I cannot but record,’ he says, ‘the effect of an actual though undesigned experiment which I prosecuted for upwards of twelve years among you. For the first eight years of that time I could expatiate only on the meanness of dishonesty, on the villany of falsehood, on the despicable arts of calumny, in a word, upon all those deformities of character which awaken the natural indignation of the human heart against the pests and disturbers of human society. But the interesting fact is, that, during the whole of that period, I never once heard of any reformation being wrought amongst my people. All the vehemence with which I urged the virtues and the proprieties of social life had not the weight of a feather on the moral habits of my parishioners. It was not until the free offer of forgiveness through the blood of Christ was urged upon the acceptance of my hearers that I ever heard of any of those subordinate reformations which I made the ultimate object of my earlier ministrations.’

And he closes that farewell speech with these memorable words : ‘You have taught me,’ he says, ‘that to preach Christ is the only effective way of preaching morality; and out of your humble cottages I have gathered a lesson which, in all its simplicity, I shall carry into a wider theatre.’ 

Do! — The Ten Commandments — that was his theme at Kilmany for eight long years, and it had not the weight of a feather ! 

Believe! — The Commandment that includes all the Commandments — that was his theme for the last four years, and he beheld its gracious and renovating effects in every home in the parish! ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved!’ 

With that great witness on his lips, Chalmers lays down his charge at Kilmany, and plunges into a larger sphere to make world-history!

VI 

‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved!’ Chalmers greatly believed and was greatly saved. He was saved from all sin and made saintly. ‘If ever a halo surrounded a saint,’ declares Lord Rosebery, ‘it encompassed Chalmers!’ He was saved from all littleness and made great. Mr. Gladstone used to say of him that the world can never forget ‘his warrior grandeur, his unbounded philanthropy, his strength of purpose, his mental integrity, his absorbed and absorbing earnestness; and, above all, his singular simplicity ; he was one of nature’s nobles.’ ‘A strong featured man,’ said Carlyle, thinking of the massive form, the leonine head and the commanding countenance of his old friend; ‘a strong featured man, and of very beautiful character.’ When I want a definition of the salvation that comes by faith, I like to think of Thomas Chalmers.

VII 

Yes; he greatly believed and was greatly saved; he greatly lived and greatly died. It is a Sunday evening. He — now an old man of sixty-seven — has remained at home, and has spent a delightful evening with his children and grandchildren. It is one of the happiest evenings that they have ever spent together. ‘We had family worship this morning,’ the old doctor says to a minister who happens to be present, ‘but you must give us worship again this evening. I expect to give worship in the morning!’ Immediately after prayers he withdraws, smiling and waving his hands to them all and wishing them, ‘a general good-night!’ They call him in the morning: but there is no response. ‘I expect to give worship in the morning!’ he had said ; and he has gone to give it ! He is sitting up in bed, half erect, his head reclining gently on the pillow; the expression of his countenance that of fixed and majestic repose. His students liked to think that their old master had been translated at the zenith of his powers : he felt no touch of senile decay. 

‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved!’ What is it to be saved? I do not know. No man knows. But as I think of the transformation that the text effected in the experience of Chalmers; as I contemplate his valiant and unselfish life; together with his beautiful and glorious death; and as I try to conceive of the felicity into which that Sunday night he entered, I can form an idea. 

FWB