A Selection from the Correspondence of the Late Thomas Chalmers

Many of the following- Letters were forwarded too late to secure their insertion in the proper order of their dates. The Letter, for instance, addressed to Mrs. Dunlop (p. 131) had passed through the press some weeks before that important series with which the Volume closes, and of which it should have formed a part, came into the Editor’s hands. He trusts that this explanation may be accepted as an apology for any want of orderly arrangement that the Volume may present,

EDINBURGH, May 1853.

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[So great an interest has been expressed in Dr. Chalmers’s Correspondence with Mr. James Anderson and Mr. Thomas Smith, that we commence this volume by completing that Correspondence. Dr. Chalmers’s answers to Mr. Anderson’s last letters unfortunately have not been preserved, but these letters appeared to have merit enough of their own to warrant their insertion.

No. I. — DR. CHALMERS TO MR. JAMES ANDERSON.

Kilmany Manse, 22 d February 1812.

MY DEAR SIR, — It grieves me to disappoint the hopes I had myself raised, but the truth is, that I overrated my strength when I last wrote you. I was very much fatigued on the night of my arrival, but expected to be quite fresh and active next day; instead of which I felt myself quite powerless and exhausted, and am still in a very useless state. I am too well aware of the effects of a Sunday’s exertions upon me to think, in these circumstances, of attempting Dundee on Monday at all.

I regret it the less, that I find you have every prospect of matters going on as they should do. Had I been in possession of the requisite strength, I meant to prepare myself for resisting the proposal of a Scottish Bible Society, in case it had been made by Dr. Nichol or others. Be strong, I beseech you, on this head. When I meet you I will go over the mystery of this Society at greater length. In the meantime, it may well be illustrated by the following comparison: —

Suppose the town of Dundee to be in want of water, and a, general subscription proposed for bringing it in pipes from a good and copious spring at a distance. Each individual subscription tells for the benefit of the whole. Some inferior spring is discovered in the Seagate, which can only supply half the street, with water of less value than the former, and at a .superior expense to the individuals benefited. An association in the Seagate for digging wells would not be more ridiculous than a Scottish Bible Society. It would injure the general subscription, and thereby affect the interest of the whole town. And this unlucky diversion would be found to carry along with it more expense, and less benefit, to the very promoters of it. When I say that a separate Society must produce an inferior article, I am quite correct. The power of capital multiplies beyond its own rate of increase. ^20,000 a year can effect more than twenty times what ^1000 a year can effect. And think of the privilege which the London Society has of working off Bibles at a University press. This explains the cheap rate at which they can afford Bibles.

There is one circumstance which should never be forgotten in the administration of your Society. You may overdo the supply of home objects, — this is the great mischief to be apprehended from the Scottish. To prove its utility, it must do something; and to manifest its importance, it will make that something as much as possible. The peasants of Scotland purchase Bibles for themselves. This is too fine a habit to be repressed or tampered with. Our people think a Bible worthy of its price. They should be left to make the sacrifice. It endears the Bible more to them. And you may conceive the mischief that must accrue from an officious Society substituting its own bounty, and issuing Bibles from their public repository in the same business style that they would distribute soup, or shoes, or greatcoats, or breeches. The auxiliary Societies in England

Mil. JAMES ANDERSON”.

often detain one-half for home objects. But remember that in England the habit is yet to form. In Scotland the habit is formed already; and to do anything which can trench upon this habit would be to do an incalculable mischief. If the man who, at this moment, depends upon himself for a Bible, and actually buys one, is led by the indiscreet administration of your funds to depend upon the Society, what becomes of that man when this dependence fails him? He has lost the habit of purchasing for himself; and the security that Bibles shall be read, and possessed, and valued by our people, is transferred from the deeply-seated principles of their own hearts to the precarious exertions of a Society, irregular in its movements and uncertain in its duration. Send as much as possible to the London Society; avail yourselves as little of your privilege as Auxiliary Societies as is absolutely necessary. — Yours truly, No. It. — MR. JAMES ANDERSON TO DR. CHALMERS.

Dundee, lth June 1812.

(MY DEAR SIR, — I am ashamed I have been so long in acknowledging your kindness at Kilmany, and the happiness I enjoyed under your roof. Could I maintain the impressions I there received, I would deem my Christian course rapidly progressive; but I am here in a widely different scene — little favourable to sober thinking. My mind, distracted with the bustle and cold-heartedness of business, recurs with difficulty to the contemplations of religion; and the want of a friend with whom I can communicate on these subjects deprives me of that excitement which is the life of every pursuit. ) I, how ever, feel myself much more decidedly attached to Christianity, and I hope, by the blessing of God, to attain the stability of a true disciple of Jesus. I every day see more and more the propriety of deriving my religion from the uncommented oracles of God, and of forming my system on the connected declarations of the New Testament. I wish to unshackle myself from the vassalage of text-books, summaries, and human systems. I wish to give the Bible a fair trial; for if it alone is not sufficient to make a Christian, “we are of all men most miserable,” I at present therefore confine myself to the perusal of the Bible, and occasionally some book of practical morality. I find many tilings which I do not understand — many passages indeed totally unintelligible; but these difficulties are to be got over, not by a religious commentary, but by a classical criticism. I conceive every duty of a Christian to be comprehended in the single word, translation — a translation of the Scriptures into his own tongue, and a translation of their truths into his own heart and conduct. All we have to do is to ascertain the doctrines, and to believe them; to ascertain the duties, and to practise them; to make the Bible our vade mecum, our book of reference, our book of trust. I will rejoice, after my opinions are settled, to examine those of others; but I think it is invert ing the process to begin with the latter. My objections to the school of theological orthodoxy are three: — First, its tenets are not authoritative, and therefore may be wrong. Next, its tenets are not progressive. The New Testament gives you Christianity in its growth; a system of divinity displays it at some given step of its progress, or at best at its maturity. The latter is a religion of results. It has been formed by a man who has become unconscious of the steps of his own cogitations, and who, from familiarity with demonstrative truths, now regards them as axioms. He, from the sublime height of his own conceptions, looks down with contempt on the man who complains that he has removed the ladder by which he first ascended; and, accustomed to the wide ken of his own exalted region, wonders at those whose views rest within a narrower horizon. How different the svstem of the Bible! It leads you on step by step, and accommodates its lessons to your capacity. While perusing it, one naturally fixes on the truths which are most congenial; familiarity with these prepares us for others more remote, until we at length embrace the whole scheme of the Gospel. Thus, I may first delight to dwell on the Gospel morality; a second perusal may show that faith is also necessary; a third perusal may convince me that morality and faith must be united, and that it is not a union of separate acts, but of consequential duties; and, I may finally come to the conclusion, that our salvation resolves itself into a simple and disencumbered act of acceptance. But if you at once come for ward with this last proposition, you present me with a system in which I cannot sympathize, and which, however well founded, rests on what must be to me a metaphysical distinction, until I arrive at it by a process of

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