Letters to General Darroch
No. CXXX.
Burntisland, 23d June 1841.
MY DEAR GENERAL, — Before making a specific reply to your question, I would first premise, that it conveys to my mind no assurance of Parliamentary support to our Church from any individual, of whom I am told no more than that he belongs to a certain party in the State, on whatever side he may happen to be.
Having made this general statement alike applicable, either to Conservatives merely as such, or to Liberals merely as such, let me now state what appears to me at present the great difference between them.
Should the Conservatives prove the dominant party, and if their collective mind is to be interpreted by the recent declaration, (too authentic, I fear, of Sir Robert Peel’s,) then the dissolution of our Church, as a National Establishment, must be the inevitable result. Should, on the other hand, the Liberals be the dominant party, and if their collective mind is to be interpreted by the various sayings of Lord Melbourne, which, all taken together, indicate a downright indifferency to the whole matter, then, without one scintilla of affirmative confidence in them as a body, there is still the possibility that under them we may at least be let alone by the Legislature — so let alone as we have been during the last two years. In this view of the matter, the two terms of the alternative, on which you have to balance your decision, are the certainty of destruction or the chance of safety.
I have only to add, that the declaration of Mr. Stewart contrasts favourably with the acts of Colonel Mure, by which I mean his late votes in the General Assembly. And furthermore, that whereas nothing can be more annoying than the lame and impotent defences made of the Church, even by the best of her lay friends, whether in or out of Parliament, due of course to the want of a distinct understanding on the question, I must say, that I have not read a more clear, distinct, and able statement for the Church, by any of our merely secular and political supporters, than the one I read to-day from a reported speech of Mr. Stewart’s in the town of Greenock.
I am sensible that, instead of presenting you with any decision of mine, I am only presenting you with the data, in which, perhaps, you may find some help in coming to your own decision on this subject.
You will perceive from the above that the declaration of Sir Robert Peel necessarily influences and affects my views upon this question, and makes me look on the Conservatives as now standing in a different relation to the Church from that in which I at one time regarded them both with confidence and pleasure. How I long for a Wilberforce party in Parliament, consisting of men who would make it the polar star of their public and Parliamentary conduct, to adopt such measures as were best for the moral and religious wellbeing of the population. — I ever am, my dear General, yours most respectfully, and with the utmost regard, TIIOMAS CHALMERS.
P.S. — Since writing the above I have seen a gentleman who; has been strenuously insisting that the policy of Scottish Churchmen is to send as many Conservative members, pledged to Non-intrusion, as possible, so as that they might favourably influence Sir Robert in the cause of our spiritual independence. I am not able to decide among these conflicting elements what our best policy is in the matter of these elections; but in the matters which properly belong to us, I believe that our true policy is a fearless course of principle, and thorough determination rather to separate from the State than give up by ever so little our own final jurisdiction in things ecclesiastical.
No. CXXXI.
Morningside, Edinburgh, 10th August 1845.
MY PEAR GENERAL DARIIOCH, — I have long meditated a letter to you, and I am greatly encouraged to use this freedom by the uniform urbanity and kindness which I have ever experienced at your hands. Nothing can exceed my grateful recollection of our last interviews; and I fondly hope that the lessons which I read in the affecting memorials of the departed upon the tablets behind your house will make an indelible impression upon me. “I see it all now,” and “this is real life,” carry more of an experimental demonstration for the truth of religion and the reality of eternal things than any dying testimony that I remember to have met with in the biographies of the good and the faithful. It is well that you have recorded these precious and inestimable sayings on the tombstone of her who poured them forth in her last and closing accents upon earth. May they tell effectually upon us all, and lead us to b& followers of them who through faith and patience are now inheriting the promises.
I begin to feel more than ever the rapidity of time, and the urgency of the call for readiness against the day of our great and coming change. And I should say, that the first and greatest step towards this condition of readiness is, just to accept of the forgiveness which God holds out to all on the footing that Christ hath died for us. This forgiveness is ours if we trust in Him who hath set forth His own Son as a propitiation for the sins of the world. On this foundation, on this foundation only, do we stand in secure reconciliation with God; and so standing, might we plead with all confidence for the fulfilment of His own promise, that He would pour forth His Spirit upon us, and shed abroad His love in our hearts, and make us new creatures, and prepare us for the everlasting enjoyment of Himself in heaven, where there is fulness of pleasures at His own right hand.
It is truly my earnest prayer, dearest Sir, that such might be your blessed experience in time, and such the portion of your eternity. The world is fast receding from us both. These days and years are flying over our heads with a speed which seems to increase with every new revolution of the seasons. And it is a world, too, in which, by our Saviour’s own statement, (John xvi. 33,) we should be ever laying our account to meet with tribulation. But what a delightful counterpart to this is the other statement, that in Him we shall have peace; may this peace, my dearest General, be yours; may you have great peace, great joy in believing. I can truly say of this world, that in it I would not live alway. One’s path here — and I have the frequent experience of it — is beset with vexations and discomforts on every side. But what a deliverance to take refuge from all these in {he love of a pitying Saviour, and in the firm prospect of that eternal life which is the gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
I have been pondering some of the other death-bed sayings of dear Mrs. Darroch. They have been furnished to me by your daughter-in-law, one of my best-loved friends. I have been greatly affected by the perusal of them. They form altogether a most precious and animating record of her who has gone before us. Let us die the death of the righteous, let our latter end be like theirs. Truly hers was a latter end of peace, clothed upon with the righteousness of Christ, and looking confidently forward to its rewards, she died, as did my own mother about eighteen years ago, in the triumphs of the faith. — I ever am, my dear General, yours with the greatest regard,