Chalmers and Guthrie on the 'Charity of Kindness'

What is charity?  Is it just the widespread and indiscriminate distribution of money? How effective has this been over the last 50-60 years in our own country?  Is there a connection between poverty and morality?  Well as we saw in a previous article 'Dr Guthrie and the Blind Organist', Guthrie believed that the effect of the gospel which should create self denial, frugality (thriftiness, carefulness) and discipline could have a significant effect on a poor household.  Guthrie believed that there could be exceptions to this rule but generally speaking he held to the principle of Psalm 36 v 25: 'All my life I have not seen the righteous left forsaken, or begging for food.'  As he says: ‘I have made extensive enquiries; and feel perfect confidence in asserting that foresight and frugality would place our people, save in a few exceptional cases, beyond the reach of want or the need of charity.  It is the want of these that makes Poor Laws necessary – if they are necessary.’

Like all great social reformers Guthrie challenged sin as much as encouraging virtue.  He was like William Wilberforce who fought on the one hand against slavery but on the other fought for a reformation of manners.  We have a slightly idealised view of the Victorian era.  The reality was that as Eric Metaxas says in his biography of Wilberforce, Victorian society was particularly 'brutal, decadent, violent and vulgar.'  Like Wilberforce, Guthrie fought on various fronts to see a better society.  The simple provision of mercy was never enough for Guthrie, he sought a complete reformation of society at a moral and spiritual level.  It was a natural progression for Dr Guthrie to go on to become a fighter for temperance because he saw the huge damage that alcohol did among the working classes.  It was a development of his earlier views while still at Arbirlot (1830-37) where he established a savings bank.  As he says in his Memoirs: [this bank] ‘was a great success; training up the young to those habits of foresight, self-denial, and prudence, which are handmaids to virtue, and, though not religion, are nearly allied to it.’  Guthrie maintained that while we should fight the injustice of poverty at every turn, as he did, poverty can be compounded by addiction.

In his Second Plea for Ragged Schools Guthrie addresses himself to those who have, as yet, given nothing to the cause of Ragged Schools.  He quotes the verse in Proverbs 19 v 17: ‘He that lendeth to the poor, lendeth to the Lord, and he will repay.’  He then says: ‘The money which is lavished on sturdy beggars on the wasteful slaves of vice, on the reckless and improvident, you have no right to expect payment of.  These are not the poor.  On the contrary, they plunder the poor, and prey on poverty; and hardening men’s hearts by their frauds, inprovidence, crimes, and detected impostures, against the claims of real poverty, they deserve not charity, by chastisement.’  He continues: ‘It is a scandal and a shame that such devouring locusts are permitted to infest our city, and swarm in its streets.  The vices of a system which the police strangely tolerate, and our charity unwisely maintains, are visible in the blotched and brazened features of those thriving solicitors.  The very breath with which they whine for charity smells of the dram shop.’   To me this is the problem we have today with a faceless and bureaucratic welfare system.  Far from helping many people it traps them in a cycle of poverty where they simply exist rather than being given the help they need to realise their full potential.  While is seems harsh to our 21st Century sensitivities to hear Guthrie saying that a particular group are 'not the poor', he would have been the first to help those addicted to alcohol if they genuinely sought help.  Far from writing them off, Guthrie was seeking to bring them to their senses by not indulging their addiction.

Rev Thomas Chalmers

It was Thomas Chalmers who proved with the revived 'Parochial' or 'Territorial' system that voluntary charity could almost always achieve greater results than state welfare.  This was because it was local, more personal, better tailored to people’s needs and more flexible to changes. When Thomas Chalmers was appointed to St John’s Parish, Glasgow in 1819 he agreed along with the Town Council that all new cases of destitution would be met out of the church funds.  Thomas Chalmers divided the Parish into 25 areas and appointed an elder and deacon to minister to both the spiritual and temporal needs of each area.  The instructions were few but clear:

‘When one applies for admittance through the deacon upon our funds, the first thing to be inquired into is, if there be any kind of work that he can yet do so as either to keep him altogether off, or as to make a partial allowance serve for his necessities; the second, what his relatives are willing to do for him; third whether he is a hearer in any dissenting place of worship, and whether its session will contribute to his relief.’  

Along with the introduction of Sunday Schools and widespread education it is little wonder that the rate of Poor Relief was drastically reduced in the Parish of St John’s. As Rev William Hannah says:

‘The drunken were told to give up their drunkenness, and that until they did so their case would not even be considered; the idle were told to set instantly to work, and if they complained that work could not be gotten, by kindly applications to employers, they were helped to obtain it; a vast number of primary applications melted into nothing under the pressure of a searching investigation.’  

After three years of this experiment, and despite St John’s accepting all the poor who had been on the sessional role of all three parishes that made up St John’s, the whole cost of ‘pauperism’ reduced from £1400 per year to £280.  As Chalmers says in his works: ‘our proposal was not met with an incredulity which was all but universal.’

Dr Guthrie and Rev Chalmers didn’t believe in ‘casual charity’ but in charity that offered hope and transformation.  This is why they both believed so passionately in the parochial or territorial system.  This is why Guthrie so passionately furthered the cause of Ragged Schools.  His aim was not just to relieve the suffering of ragged children but to offer them a new life.  

Psalm 41 commands us to ‘wisely consider the case of the poor’ not simply to franchise our responsibilities to the state.  Poverty is not just caused by a lack of money so our response can never be simplistic.  Poverty involves much more than financial poverty - it involves marginalisation, isolation, stigmatisation and being disenfranchised from others in society.  Chalmers and Guthrie show us that poverty relief must be personal, robust, bespoke, generous, enduring and always with an eye on long term transformation.  As Chalmers said in the General Assembly of 1822: ‘a safe and easy navigation has been ascertained from the charity of law to the charity of kindness; and, therefore, be it now reviled, or be it disregarded as it may, we have no doubt upon our spirits, whether we look to the depraving pauperism or to the burdened agriculture of our land, that the days are soon coming when men, looking for a way of escape from these sore evils, will be glad to our own enterprise, and be fain to follow it.’

Given the rampant poverty that we have today, might this be a moment when we look to experiments like St John's and perhaps think of a better way than the indiscriminate distribution of money? Benefits can be suspended almost on a whim and people are left utterly destitute.  Wouldn't a more personal, compassionate system, delivered in partnership with faith based, Third Sector Charities make for a better system?  Wouldn't it be better to be honest about the challenges people have (such as addiction) and offer them real help rather than ignoring it for years?  Shouldn't we provide the charity of kindness rather than the charity of law?

The Parochial Economy - the opening of St John's Parish Church (Nov 1840)

In 1840 Guthrie planted a new church in Victoria Street called ‘St John’s’.  Like Thomas Chalmers, Guthrie followed the ‘Parochial’ or ‘Territorial’ system of church planting.  Interestingly Guthrie’s new church was within 5 minutes walk of Greyfriars and yet Guthrie believed that the most effective method of outreach was for the church to be on the very doorstep of the community it were seeking to reach.   The Parochial System is defined by his sons in their Memoir of their father as; the church at the door of the poor, the church free to all, a properly equipped school in every parish and elders, deacons and district visitors used to make regular contact with parishioners.  As with others involved in the Disruption, Guthrie had no reservations in petitioning the government to support or ‘endow’ this work (the Establishment Principle).  As Guthrie said on one occasion; “Divide me the large towns into small manageable parishes, provide me with a free church, add to it an endowed school, and with a staff of zealous and active and Christian elders, I don’t despair, with God’s blessing of restoring the waste places, making the wilderness rejoice and the desert glad; but that you can’t get without an endowment” Thomas Guthrie and Sons, Autobiography and Memoirs (London 1896, p 320).  

 

 

The following is the address given by Guthrie on 19th November 1840 at the opening of St John's;

 

"One grand purpose for which this church has been erected, is to try the parochial economy in a large city; and so far as I know, it stands this day alone as a parish church within the burghs of Scotland; and amid all the glory and loveliness of this romantic city, it is not, in my opinion, the meanest jewel in her crown, that here she boasts a church where the gospel will flow as free to the parishioners as the water of their parish well. 

 

The founders of our church contemplated a very different state of things from what now exists in many parishes, from what is to be found, for example, in a parish within a stone cast almost of this house; and where, as if in mockery of the able and worthy men on whose back this mountain lies, two ministers have, as parish ministers, the charge of fifty thousand people.  In our ancestors wisdom was justified of her children; and they considered a charge of a thousand people ample enough for any man to manage.  Nor did they leave the minister alone to manage it.  No more than the captain of a ship of war is the only officer on her deck, was the minister to be the only man in his parish clothed with ecclesiastical authority; he was to be aided, supported, and surrounded by a staff of officers, a band of efficient elders and deacons; and as our ancestors thought that a minister had charge enough who had in his parish a thousand people, they thought an elder had charge enough who had in his district some ten or twenty families.  They never dreamt of such a state of things as we have in our days in Scotland now. 

 

I can point to districts with the population of a parish, and parishes with the population of a county.  Nor in the good and olden time did the elder fill a merely honorary or secular office; he did something else, and something better than stand by the plate, and vote in Presbytery or General Assembly.  He visited the sick, his post was often at the bed of death, he counselled the erring, he went forth to the wilderness and brought the wanderer back to the fold, and was at once a father and a friend, a counsellor and a comfort to the families of his charge; he was known to all of them, and all of them were known to him; his name was a household word, and he could tell the name of every man, woman, and child within his bounds; and, frequently discharging offices, both of temporal and spiritual kindness, he thus acquired within his small and manageable locality, a moral influence that was omnipotent for good.

 

Our present undertaking is intended to remedy these evils.  We wish from its ruins to rebuild the ancient economy, and to restore what is not to be found nowadays in any burgh in all broad Scotland, a manageable parish, split up into districts, each containing ten or twenty families, with a free gospel in its parish church, with a school where the children of the poorest may receive at least a Bible education, and with its minister, its elders, and its deacons, each in the active discharge of the duties of his own department.  Such is the machinery that, before many weeks are gone, we trust to see in beautiful and blessed operation in the parish of St John’s.  And what good, it may be asked, do we expect to follow?  No good at all, unless God give the blessing. 

 

Besides the machinery we must have the moving power; but if He smile upon our labours we enter the field confident of victory.  What this system has done in former days it can do again – and we have no fear though the eyes of enemies should look on, for we are trying no novel, never-before-tried experiment – our fathers tried it, and they triumphed in the trial – and with the same seed, the same sun, and the same soil, should not the same cultivation produce a harvest as abundant? . . . .

 

One great advantage of a parochial church with its full complement of machinery, will be found to lie in its drawing together the different classes of society, and narrowing, if not annihilating, the gulf which now yawns wide and deep and dangerously between them.  This total separation of the higher from the lower, of the more decent from the less decent, of the wealthier from the poorer classes of society, has originated much of the irreligion, the crime, and misery that deform the face of our city.  It is very easy to blame the poor, but we must say that they have been grievously sinned against, at the least as much sinned against as sinning.  On all sides beset, surrounded, besieged by temptation, they have been left to themselves, and have had too much cause to say, “No man cared for my soul.”  Visited by none whose good opinion they had to gain, and, having gained, to keep, they have never felt one of the strongest human motives to the virtues and decencies of life. 

 

Let a man of Christian character and kindness visit their too long neglected homes; let him prove himself their friend and counsellor; let him show that he has their own best welfare and that of their children at his heart; that he rejoices in their well-doing, and is grieved with their sins; and, with all the certainty of a law of nature, there will spring up in their breasts a desire to gain and to keep the regard of this kind and Christian friend. 

 

It were difficult to tell how many families in this city might have been saved from ruin by the timely counsels, and help, and kindness of such a visitor, especially in those periods of temporary distress to which the working classes are exposed, - for example, such a season as visited Edinburgh two winters ago (1837-38) when for some six or eight weeks there was no work for many, and of course no wages. 

 

The hand of Providence visits a family with sickness, or by some accident the head of the house is thrown out of employment, and, whatever be the cause, the family are brought to the very verge of want; the children cry for bread, and their mothers have none to give them.  What is to be done?  A man won’t sit down and see his children pine away with hunger before his eyes.  Their credit with the shopkeeper is exhausted; they are either ashamed to ask assistance of their neighbours, or their neighbours are unable to afford it.  They have too much principle as yet to steal, and too much pride to beg: in these circumstances of great distress, the eye that looks round for help falls on the sign and shop of the pawnbroker, its open door invites them in, and when they have once crossed the fatal threshold, in nine cases out of ten, their ruin is sealed.  As the readiest means of meeting a present and pressing evil, one article of furniture after another is carried to the pawn; and though I have known them bear much before parting with their Bible and Sabbath attire, the fatal Saturday night at length arrives when the key of the pawnbroker is turned upon these; and now, the house of God is deserted, the seat that once knew them knows them no more, and from step to step, dragging their children along with them, down they sink into the lowest misery, till the once well-spent Sabbath is passed by the children in play upon the streets, and passed by the degraded parents in drunkenness and dissipation.  “They drink to forget their poverty and remember their misery no more.” 

 

I believe, I know this to be the sad history of many families in this city; and all this evil might have been averted had they known one into whose arms, instead of a pawnbroker’s, they could have cast themselves, in whose sympathising ear they could have told their tale of suffering, and to whose kind, and wise, and Christian efforts to relieve them, they could have trusted in the hour of trial.  In the elders and deacons with whom we propose to stock this parish, such guides and guardians will be found, and we have no doubt at all that their labours will demonstrate that the parochial economy fairly, freely, and vigorously wrought, offers the best remedy to those evils which assessments, and police, and prisons, and gibbets, may in some measure restrain, but never can eradicate."

The Life and Times of Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847)

by Donald John Maclean (Cambridge) http://jamesdurham.wordpress.com/

“Thomas Chalmers, as all the world knows, was born in the Fifeshire town of Anstruther in the year 1780”.  If that was true in 1908 when William Beveridge published his “Makers of the Scottish Church” what a change the past 100 years have seen.  In his own timeframe Thomas Carlyle called him “The chief Scotsman of his age,” he even came to the notice of Karl Marx who labelled him the “arch parson.”  When he died it was said that though it “was the dust of a Presbyterian minister which the coffin contained; and yet they were burying him amid the tears of a nation, and with more than kingly honours.”  But today, Chalmers is a forgotten and largely neglected figure.  And that is nothing short of tragedy.

 

And in many ways it is hard to explain.   Some people are forgotten because they don’t publish much.  This is not true of Chalmers.  His collected writing published in his lifetime run to 35 volumes.  Some people might be forgotten because they don’t found anything that endures.  But to take two institutions that Chalmers founded, the Free Church of Scotland and New College Edinburgh – both exist today.  Nor was his influence confined to Scotland.  William Wilberforce heard him preach and said that "all the world was wild about Dr. Chalmers."  In America the theologians of Princeton Seminary read and appreciated Chalmers.  Samuel Miller said that from Chalmers writings he received “impressions of his moral and heavenly grandeur.”

 

But perhaps there are two reasons for his neglect.  First, he addressed the specific political and economic problems of his day, as well as the spiritual, and so he wrote a number of works which are heavily dated.  Even faithful sons of the Free Church of Scotland may struggle to get overly excited by works like “On Political Economy in connection with the Moral State and Moral Prospects of Society” with chapters like “On the Increase and Limit of Food”.  Nor is a work like “On Cuvier's Theory of the Earth” going to grab attention today.  And because he wrote much on social themes, secondary literature on Chalmers has often focused on these areas – perhaps creating the false impression of a man who spoke to his time, but does not have much to say to ours.  Second, perhaps some who we might expect to warm to Chalmers are put off because of his view of the relation between science and Scripture.  Chalmers for example accepted, and it is fair to say enthusiastically embraced, the views emerging in his day over the old age of the earth.  Now, we will return to critical of Chalmers on this topic later – but we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater and ignore Chalmers because of his views here.  I remember a few years ago I was talking to someone at a wedding and as we struck up conversation he asked who I was reading.  I replied “Thomas Chalmers”.  He looked puzzled and said, “but he was a raving liberal.”  While we have to wrestle critically with Chalmers here, to call him a liberal is a tragedy.

 

Now, it is hard to capture the genius of Chalmers in a brief discussion – due to the sheer scope of his life.   His life moves from being a minister in a rural church, to leading large city congregations, to being a professor of moral philosophy, to being a professor of theology.  He leads over 1/3 of the Church of Scotland out of the denomination to form the Free Church of Scotland, launches a massive church building programme and sets in place the structures to support the church.  All the while he maintains renown as an orator, preacher, political economist, philanthropist, educationalist, ecclesiastical statesman and – above all – as an incomparable motivator of his fellow Christians. 

 

What we will try and do is look at his life and draw lessons from it as we go through.

 

Chalmers the Moralist

Chalmers was born in 1790, as we all know, in Anstruther in Fife.  He grew up in a godly home as the 6th of 14 children.  His parents were sincere Christians.  At the age of 15 he went to St Andrews to study and there fell into the deadly trap of “Moderatism.”  It is important to remember that there have been few if any “golden ages” in church history.  We might think of the late 18th and early 19th centuries as prime candidates for such.  The age before Darwin, the age before higher criticism, the age before atheism was the “default” position.  But no.  Unbelief manifests itself in many ways, religious as well as irreligious.  For instance, it is hard to imagine a more religious people than the Pharisees, and yet it is also difficult to imagine a group of people so dead in unbelief.  And so it was in the Scottish Church.  Vital religion had largely died.  There was the form of godliness but the power had long gone.  To be “evangelical,” to be “serious” about religion was no less despised in those days than our own, particularly among ministers.  The great, and none too tactful, Highland minister Lachlan MacKenzie of Lochcarron (1754-1819) said “If people go to perdition in these days it is not for want of ministers.  The clergy are likely to become soon as plentiful as the locusts in Egypt, and which of them is the greatest plague of the two, time and the experience of the church will discover.”

 

So when Chalmers arrived in St Andrews, destined by his father for the gospel ministry, he encountered the chilling and deadly atmosphere of Moderatism.  Chalmers said there that he “inhaled not only a distaste only, but a positive contempt for all that is peculiarly gospel.”  When he finished his studies he eventually was called to be the pastor in Kilmany.  At this stage he is unconverted with, as he said, a “contempt” for what he later embraced as the gospel.  He rejected the substitutionary atonement of Christ, “The tenets ... that the Author of Nature required the death of Jesus for the reparation of violated justice are rejected by all free and rational enquirers.”  He rejected justification by faith alone, “Let us tremble to think that anything but virtue can recommend us to the Almighty.”  And this he did as one who subscribed to the Westminster Confession of Faith!

 

Chalmers also had a very low view of the ministry, holding an assistantship in Mathematics at the University of St Andrews and offering lectures on science as well.  Part of his natural drive and self-confidence can be seen in that he lost his position at the University through criticising his senior college in Mathematics.  In a statement which he was later to bitterly regret he reflected his derisory view of the ministry by stating that: “The author of this pamphlet can assert from what to him is the highest of all authority – the authority of his own experience – that, after the satisfactory discharge of his parish duties, a minister may enjoy five days in the week of uninterrupted leisure for the prosecution of any science in which his taste may dispose him to engage.”  Some years later when this statement was thrown back in his face a converted Chalmers said, “Alas!  So I thought in my ignorance and pride.  I have now no reserve in saying that the sentiment was wrong, and that, in the utterance of it, I penned what was most outrageously wrong.  Strangely blinded that I was!  What, sir, is the object of mathematical science?  Magnitude and the proportions of magnitude.  But then, sir, I had forgotten two magnitudes – I thought not of the littleness of time – I recklessly thought not of the greatness of eternity.”

 

Chalmers Conversion

As Chalmers went about his leisurely ways he was brought into the valley of the shadow of death.  His brother and sister died of tuberculosis in 1806 and 1808 respectively.  As the “clergyman” in the family he had to pastor them in their dying days.  His brother asked Chalmers to do something that was distasteful to him - read aloud puritan sermons to him!  His sister asked him to do something even more uncomfortable, namely sing the psalms to her!  Over this period he sang through the Psalter 5 times to her.  Chalmers then became ill himself in 1809.  While he recovered, he faced more crises, for example, another sister died.  Through this God was working in Chalmers, and in 1810 as he was reading William Wilberforce’s Practical View of the Prevailing Religious Systems of Professed Christians a revolution came about in his spiritual life.  Chalmers was a converted man.  He later wrote: “as I got on in reading it, [I] felt myself on the eve of a great revelation in all my opinions about Christianity … I am now most thoroughly of the opinion, and it is an opinion founded on experience, that on the system of “Do this and live” – no peace and even no true and worthy obedience, can ever be obtained.  It is “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.”  When this belief enters the heart, joy and confidence enter along with it.”

Application: Perhaps somewhere around the UK today there is someone labouring in a parish, confused in unbelief, whom God will use, like Chalmers, to awaken a nation.  May this be our prayer!

Chalmers Renewed Pastorate in Kilmany

 

A passion was ignited in Chalmers heart for the bible.  Before his conversion, one of the members of his congregation said to him: “I find you aye busy, sir, with one thing or another; but come when I may, I never find you at your studies for the Sabbath.”  “Oh!” said Chalmers, “an hour or two on the Saturday evening is quite enough for that.”  But regarding the converted Chalmers the same man said, “I never come in now, sir, but I find you at your bible!”  To which Chalmers responded: “All too little, John, all too little”.

 

Application: Perhaps we lack Chalmers power because we lack his acquaintance with the word of God?

This love of the Bible became evident as Chalmers threw himself wholeheartedly into the work of the emerging Bible society movement.  Remember the Bible Society began in 1804 in London, and the Scottish Bible Society was founded in Edinburgh in 1809.  Being new, being innovative was something that never troubled Chalmers.

 

As well as the work for Bible Societies, and related to it, was Chalmers passionate attachment to mission and the emerging missionary societies.  In 1813 he published a sermon “The two great instruments appointed for the propagation of the Gospel.”  This was a powerful sermon on the text “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word.”  Here is his conclusion: “Those to whom Christ is precious will long that others should taste of that preciousness.  Those who … [rejoice in] the sufficiency of the atonement will long that the knowledge of a remedy so effectual should be carried around the globe … In a word those who love the honour of the Saviour, will long that his kingdom be extended till all the nations of the earth be brought under his one grand and universal monarchy – till the powers of darkness shall be extinguished – till the mighty Spirit which Christ purchased by His obedience shall subdue every heart, shall root out the existence of sin, [and] shall restore the degeneracy of our fallen nature…”  As a result of this he became a director of the London Missionary Society. 

 

Application: Chalmers, like another great Presbyterian Charles Hodge, was a man who transcended denominational boundaries.  He embraced the new voluntary societies for bible distribution and mission.  He worked with those outside the Presbyterian tradition.  How comfortable are we doing working with those outside our circles?

 

Another example of Chalmers willingness to embrace change was that he was willing to adapt the form of his language to his hearers, stating that, “I feel that I do not come close enough to the heart and experience of my hearers, and begin to think that the phraseology of the old writers must be given up for one more accommodated to the present age.”  It was said that [Blakie] “not a vestige did he borrow of traditional forms, hardly any of the traditional phraseology.” In his famous sermon on “the common people heard him gladly.”  Chalmers said that “We hear of the orator of fashion, the orator of the learned, the orator of the mob.  A minister of Jesus Christ should be none of these; and if an orator at all, it should be his distinction that he is an orator of the [whole] species.”  That was his goal, to speak to all in his age, whatever their station in life.

 

Chalmers was by all accounts an extraordinary preacher.  This he achieved while breaking all the conventional rules of pulpit eloquence of his day.  First, he read his sermon from a manuscript rather than preaching extemporaneously.  Second, he suffered from “the obstacles of a provincial education, an ungraceful person, and an unharmonious voice.”  But despite this he had a power that captivated.  Hear the classic description of his preaching: “His voice is neither strong nor melodious, his gestures neither easy nor graceful; but on the contrary exceptionally rude and awkward; his pronunciation not only broadly national, but broadly provincial, distorting every word he utters into some barbarous novelty … He commences in a low drawling key, which has not even the merit of being solemn, and advances from sentence to sentence, and from paragraph to paragraph, while you seek in vain to catch a single echo that gives promise of what is to come … But then, with what tenfold richness does this preliminary curtain make the glories of his eloquence to shine forth … I have never heard either in England or Scotland, or in any other country, any preacher whose eloquence is capable of producing an effect so strong and irresistible.”

Two key things about Chalmers preaching:

-          “By far the most effective ingredient of good preaching is the personal piety of the preacher himself.”  This is the “spiritual conviction” that was identified as the key to his preaching.

-          “The great aim of our ministry is to win souls.”

Application: Is this the great aim or our lives, and our ministries?

W.G. Blakie stated that “his whole discourse was … a boiling, foaming current, a mingled stream of exposition illustration and application, directed to the one great object of moving his audience to action.  His soul was so penetrated with his subject, his whole nature was so roused and electrified by it, that others could not but be roused and electrified too.”

 

Two Glasgow Pastorates

In 1815 Chalmers was called to Glasgow, to the Tron Parish Church.  Some of his greatest work was done in Glasgow.  When he arrived he was responsible for a parish of around 12,000.  His church could accommodate 1300.  And of his church, which was full, less than 100 people came from his parish.  His parish was working class - his congregation was the emerging middle class.

 

And so what would you do?  You have a large congregation. You have a lot of duties to perform.  Surely you are content with your lot?  Well this is where Chalmers “heart for mission” begins to shine through.  We have seen it a little in his support for bible societies, in his willingness to adapt his language, but here it really shines out.

First, he engages in systematic parish visitation.  That is over 2,200 households.  Over two years he visits them all.  As part of this he reenergises the eldership in his parish increasing the number of elders from 8 to 25 one year after moving to the Tron.

Second, he organised mid-week services in conjunction with visitation.  For many this was the only service they would have.  Remember the church was woefully small in comparison to the number of people in the parish.  Recall also that in those days you had to pay a “seat rent” to get a seat in the church - which for those who were poverty stricken was not straightforward!

Third, he embraced the emerging Sunday School movement.  He organised his parish into districts giving each teacher a manageable size of catchment area.  He established 47 schools in his parish.  A number of his teachers went on to be ministers having received a grounding in visiting working class homes, getting to know the conditions in which people lived, and trying to make the Christian faith understandable to groups of children who, one suspects, would not have necessarily been the most willing listeners.

Fourth, he fought against the secularisation of the ministry.  It is almost staggering to think what the duties of a parish minister involved in those days.  From administering what today is social security benefit, to sitting on town councils debating whether pig or ox broth was better for the ill.  He stated “I am gradually separating myself from all this trash, and long to establish … [that my] entire time [be] disposable to the purposes to which the apostles gave themselves wholly, that is the ministry of the word and prayer.”

Application: Chalmers was clearly comfortable breaking the accepted mould.  Be that in adopting contemporary language.  Be that in taking the church out in to the world.  Be that in embracing bible societies and the missionary movement.  Chalmers clearly and wisely distinguished between what were fixed principles and matters simply of preference and form.  What can we do today?  How do we become “all things to all men” without abandoning our duty to “contend earnestly for the faith”?

Application: Breaking the mould can be a bad thing.  When in Glasgow Chalmers published works (e.g. Astronomical Discourses) accepting the emerging geology.  This raises the question of whether Chalmers’ embrace of the teachings of natural science ultimately set the scene for the embrace of higher criticism and the death of the Free Church he founded. For myself, I think the answer is that he set a trajectory which could, and sadly did, lead the Free Church astray.

Iain Murray correctly notes that for Chalmers “the care of souls was not to end in the pulpit.  He pressed upon his divinity students what became known as the “aggressive principle”, that is to say, they must take the gospel to the people; the unchurched must not be left alone, rather they must be pursued wherever they are to be found.”

A couple of interesting anecdotes:

·         Chalmers drew huge crowds and at times this could present a danger to safety.  On one occasion he later related to a fellow pastor the steps he had taken to reduce crowds:  “I preached the same sermon in the morning and for the very purpose of preventing the oppressive annoyance of such a densely crowded place I intimated that I should preach it again in the evening.  Have you ever tried that plan?”  “I did not smile,” said the other minister, “I laughed outright.  ‘No, my friend,’ I replied.  ‘Very few of us need to resort to special means to get thin audiences!’”

·         Chalmers was preaching in the High Church, Edinburgh. A report of his sermon: “In those days his action was violent in the extreme.  The whole energy of the man seemed to be thrown into his limbs: the pulpit cushion got such a dusting as it had not known since the days of John Knox.  He was enveloped in a cloud of dust – his gown flew around his shoulders; but he held his audience rapt until one was unconscious of time and space.”

In order to cope with the large scale population movements and to try his ideas in a new setting Chalmers took advantage of plans to set up a new parish, St Johns.  He also wished to demonstrate that the Church itself through the diaconate could care for the poor, without specific state levies.  He also set up schools for general education, with a Christian base.

The success of the St John’s experiment has been much debated.  What is clear is that a passion for church planting to meet population growth, combined with a revitalisation of the deaconate to care for the poor, aligned with his earlier revitalisation of the eldership was a key achievement, and a large step to better days ahead.

Chalmers the Professor

In 1823 Chalmers moved back to St Andrews to be Professor of Moral Philosophy.  Why did he do this?  Chalmers was aware of St Andrews as a stronghold of the “moderates”.  Why did he abandon his church in Glasgow?  Well the answer I think lies in strategic usefulness.  What he could do in one congregation himself, he could inspire scores of students who passed through his classroom to do.  It was as a teacher of the rising generation he felt he could do most for “the Christian good of Scotland.” 

 

When in St Andrews Chalmers remained an enthusiastic supporter of mission – encouraging the first Church of Scotland missionary Alexander Duff as he went to India.  He was chair of the St Andrews Missionary Society.  While in St Andrews 300 students passed through his hands.  He used his planned influence well, having many groups of students round for meals and holding fellowships on Sabbath evenings. After 5 years in St Andrews, (now 1828) during which his wife threatened to become a non-conformist to escape the moderatism of the Church of Scotland, Chalmers transferred to the Chair of Divinity in Edinburgh.  Here he became the leading evangelical in the church, and in 1832 was appointed moderator of the General Assembly.

 

Chalmers had a longstanding vision that “through every district of the land there would be a church to which the people may repair.”  In 1834 he was appointed to lead a new “Church Extension Committee.”  Over the next 7 years he raised funds equivalent to £22m today and saw 220 new churches planted.

 

In Edinburgh he was appointed to the Church’s foreign mission board, he was a patron of the Edinburgh University Missionary Association and took an honorary position on the Board of Foreign Mission of the Presbyterian Church in America.  However, by this time the balance of power in terms of mission support in Scotland swung from voluntary societies to the Church.  That I think was a good thing.

 

In Edinburgh Chalmers was able to influence a rising generation.  Names you may have heard of came under is sway: Robert Murray McCheyne, William Cunningham, Andrew Bonar, Horatius Bonar, George Smeaton and others.  One example of what he did is on Saturday mornings he got his students to gather for prayer in New College and in pairs visit the poorest areas of the city.  One of those who gathered was McCheyne and it was said of him that “In Chalmers more than any other person that McCheyne found the mould for his ecclesiastical and religious thought.”

 

The Disruption

Through the labours of Chalmers and others an evangelical revival had been occurring and in 1834 they had the majority in the Church.  A controversy had been brewing for some time over the right of congregations to choose their own ministers, rather than the rich landowners imposing their choice.  The 1834 assembly gave congregations the right to veto the appointment of any minister that they could not agree to.  This led to a significant dispute between the Church and the state which eventually was decided in the House of Lords against the rights of the Church.  Believing that “the crown rights of King Jesus” had been violated by the state Chalmers led nearly 40% of the ministers out of the Church of Scotland to form the Free Church of Scotland.  Soon 800 churches were established and a new theological college in Edinburgh founded. Some key features of Chalmers vision for the Free Church:

-          Strong churches support the weak by giving funds to support their work.  This was known as the “sustentation fund” and was a practical expression of Presbyterian unity.

-          Passionately evangelistic e.g. reaching out in the West Port of Edinburgh

-          Non-denominational e.g. despite being the leading founder of the denomination, Chalmers could say “Who cares for the Free Church compared with the Christian good of Scotland.”

-          Committed to evangelical unity e.g. Chalmers was one of the founders of the Evangelical Alliance.

What is a real testament to Chalmers is that when the Free Church split from the Church of Scotland, every single missionary identified themselves with the new Free Church!

Chalmers died 4 years after the Free Church was founded.  Andrew Bonar said: “Remember that very few men, and very few ministers, keep up to the end the edge that was on their spirit at the first.” Chalmers did.

Application: How does Chalmer’s founding a new denomination fit with Christian unity?  Why split the church over the election of ministers when there is a “plague” of Moderate ministers in the church?  Which if any of these should have split the Kirk?

 

So, the life of Thomas Chalmers.  Wouldn’t it be good if a day could come when articles on Chalmers could once again begin: “Thomas Chalmers, as all the world knows, was born in the Fifeshire town of Anstruther in the year 1780”!