Correspondence with James Anderson and Thomas Smith

[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

individual experience. My third objection is, that theological orthodoxy is too stimulative. It begets a disrelish for the simple excitement of the Gospel. It urges you by such a multiplicity of motives that you become too passive for a New Testament impulse. It clothes the doctrines in so much metaphysical acumen that you consider their Gospel dress as slovenly, and it anatomizes the precepts so much, that the simple exhibition of a text suggests no ideas of vitality. We revel in a kind of religious epicurism, and lose all taste for sober fare.

These and similar considerations have made me resolve to study, in the meantime, only the New Testament. I may not thus so well prepare myself for classing with a particular sect; but I will have greater security in my own principles, and in my intercourse with others I will be more ready to observe the maxim, “I have yet many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now.”

I will soon write you again. And requesting your prayers for my progress, — I remain, my dear friend, yours,

JAMES ANDERSON.

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

Dundee, IQth July 1812.

‘MY DEAR SIR, — I have expected a letter from you for two or three weeks past, but have been disappointed. I wish our correspondence could assume a more decided and regular form, and that I might be able to leave the generalities, which have hitherto occupied me, and proceed to the characteristic parts of Christianity. I must, however, once more beg of you to permit me to state the sentiments under which I peruse my Bible, for even on this point I feel perplexed, and I see it occupying so prominent a place in the systems of matured Christians as to disconcert me with regard to the very first steps of my progress.

I have resolved then to make the Bible the rule of my opinions and conduct; not so much from any deep sense of sin or consciousness of my own insufficiency, as from a conviction that the Bible is a revelation from God, and a determination to submit to that revelation whatever it may be. I have divested my mind of that repugnance to the adoption of truths which arises from their disagreement with our prior conceptions ;(but I do this in such a state of passivity, that I would adopt without hesitation, if I found it in the Bible, that scheme of salvation a consciousness of the insufficiency of which is believed by many Christians to be a necessary preliminary in any attempts to become a Christian. As I do not allow my prior conceptions of Divine mercy to obstruct my admission of the declaration that sinners will be condemned to everlasting punishment, so I do not permit my prior conceptions of Divine justice to facilitate my admission of the declaration that there is no salvation but in Jesus. J I open the Bible to ascertain the will of God, and so conscious of my inability to judge of His counsels that I would, with perfect security, expect salvation from ceremonial observances, had the Bible declared that with these God would be satisfied. But I at the same time allow that it is possible that such a procedure may be presumptuous, and that God might have declared that He would not permit the truths of the Gospel to be even investigated until we approached them under a conviction of their necessity. Here, then, I feel embarrassed. Had I read only the New Testament, I do not think that such embarrassment would have existed; but I have found, both in books and the conversation of Christians, great stress put on this very question, and I do not know whether to refer it to their being wise above what is written, or to my own imperfect acquaintance with Scripture. There are many topics of a similar nature, concerning which I am reduced to the same state of perplexity. For example: — Lesslie, the bookseller, whom I believe to be a sincere and experienced Christian, asked me a few days ago to write an appendix to a small tract which he is reprinting. I did so; and, having given a short account of the nature and beneficent exertions of the Religious Tract Societies, I concluded with a few exhortations — among other things recommending to the reader frequent prayer to God. When I carried it to him, he (with a frankness which, in a dependent tradesman, I consider no mean proof of the sincerity of his principles) told me that he did not approve of my recommending prayer, “because,” to use his own words, “prayer is sinful in the unregenerate.” This opinion I heard, at the moment, with extreme disgust; but a little reflection soon convinced me that it is possible his opinion may be true, for the arguments which he used were at least plausible. Although I retain my former opinion, I have a sense of insecurity from these repeated obstacles and difficulties, and I feel a disappointment at not finding the scheme of Christianity so well defined as I expected. I would be ashamed to say it to any one else; but I confess to you, that, at this moment, I have no adequate and well-defined conceptions of the plan of salvation, or of the economy of that intercourse which subsists betwixt a Christian and the Godhead. I perceive that there is, if I may so express it, much more of business in the unseen realities of the Gospel than I formerly conceived; and that these realities, whatever they may be, are something as distinct from my simple and generic notions twelve months ago, as the ideas which a clown entertains of the atmosphere are from those of one acquainted with its chemical analysis. What, however, the specific peculiarities of the system are

I do not yet perceive in a clear and uniform manner; and the diversity of opinion, among conscientious, candid, and enlightened men on this subject, is to me the greatest of all discouragements in my progress. One recommends prayer, another says that faith must precede prayer; and thus I am left in doubt as to the propriety of employing such prayers as I at present am most inclined to use. Do you conceive that this prayer, “0 God! so guide me in the investigation of thy Gospel, that I may arrive at a distinct knowledge of that faith which is the source of acceptable prayer,” — do you conceive that such a prayer, put up to the Deity upon a conviction of His omniscience and omnipotence, would be heard, although not made in the name of Christ, or accompanied by a request for the Spirit’s operation; or would you consider it as an address to the Unknown God? Or, to take another instance, do you think that the prayer of that man would be sinful, who, upon being presented with a Bible, and told what it professed to be, should pray to God so to direct him in the investigation of its evidences that he might detect its falsehood if it was untrue? Such prayers I should deem efficacious for the following reasons; because belief in the existence and superintendence of a Deity I consider to be faith, — and, although not that faith which will secure salvation, yet such a faith as will render a prayer for farther convictions acceptable; and because Jesus recommended prayer before (if we may judge from the arrangement of the history) the scheme of, saving faith was unfolded, and when His hearers were so far ignorant of His nature as to be astonished that He used aj style more authoritative than the Scribes. (ji have many other subjects to discuss with you; but I will not abuse your patience at present.! Of the need I have of assistance, you have ample proof in the unsettled and contradictory nature of my letters. I am still undecided in the very fundamentals of religion, and in moments of gloom I often dread I will relapse into a state of obdurate scepticism. — I am, my dear Sir, yours truly, JAMES ANDERSON.

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

Peterhead, 28th September 1812.

MY DEAR SIR, — I was never more anxious to be with you than since I came here, for my mind has been distracted lay the most violent emotions respecting a subject intimately connected with my future happiness, and, perhaps, my eternal salvation — I mean my future profession.... My father expresses himself averse to my becoming a clergyman, for many reasons, which he enumerates, and adds, “that a desire to advance the cause of Christianity may be gratified by a well-intentioned and well-informed layman as effectually, and, in many cases, with more effect than by a clergyman.” I endeavour to bring my mind to this simple decision — in which way shall I most promote the glory of God? But a thousand other considerations intrude in spite of me, until at last I get bewildered in questions of personal comfort and worldly estimation. What I most dread is, that my religious progress would not be so great in the situation of a merchant as that of a clergyman; for, were I able, amid the distractions of business, to acquire and maintain that tone of elevated Christianity, to which the pursuits of a clergyman are so favourable, I believe my exertions in the cause would be more useful on account of the greater extent of my means, the absence of professional obligation, and because my influence would be exerted in a sphere to which clergymen have little access, and which of course is little pre-occupied. On all these points I am most desirous to have your opinion. My father farther says, that if arrangements can be made with the Bank of Scotland, whose servant I am at present, he is fully inclined to give me another winter at Edinburgh. “This,” he says, “may prove useful whatever your future destination may be, and it will afford time for us all to consider and implore direction for our government in meeting the allotments of Providence,” This is my present situation. ( We return to Dundee on the 6th or 7th of October, and I will then either visit or write you I have a dependence on your counsel and friendship which Christianity alone could inspire; and I feel grateful to my God that He has brought us together. The affairs of time are slowly shrinking into their due dimensions — the realities of an eternal world are gradually expanding before me — I begin to take refuge from the cares and the prospects of life in the bosom of my Saviour, and to realize that period when, through His merits, the faithful shall worship before the throne of God for ever.

Since I came here I have read “Edwards on Necessity,” and I have read it with rapture. I have as much confidence in his theory as in any mathematical proposition; and I find that it leads at once to a thorough solution of what appeared to me the greatest difficulties of the Bible. It is the centre pillar of Christianity; and if there is one subject more than another in which I should like to have my language and conceptions modelled to strict propriety it is this. But as yet, although I see the gross absurdity of the Arminian system, my new opinions sit uneasily upon me, and it will require some time to assimilate them with the train of my ordinary conceptions.

What is true, however, must ultimately prove familiar. I see, by to-day’s paper, that Wilberforce has refused to stand during the approaching election, and is to retire from public life. This I consider one of the most alarming features of the times. Such a man would not have quitted his post if he had not seen that his exertions were fruitless; and when worth loses its sway over public opinion, a country is near its downfal. His memory will ever be cherished; and, although Britain yield to the fate of nations, his name will emerge from the ruins of her greatness a monument to the heroism and the triumphs of Christian principle. Even at this moment he is known throughout Africa, and his name circulates in their dreary habitations as that of some mysterious being who curbs the fury of the whites.- — I ever am, my dear friend, yours most truly, JAMES ANDERSON.

No. V. — MR. THOMAS SMITH TO DR. CHALMERS.

Glasgow, 13th November 1815.

DEAR SIR, — After a week’s separation from you, which, to say the least, has been very tedious to me, the slight communication I can produce by writing is very acceptable. The weather, during the last week, has been very bad, and it gives me some comfort to think that only two days have elapsed since you left this, which would have answered for our walk....

I have read with great interest the accounts of the Moravian Missionaries, which you were so kind as lend me. These people seem to have more religion and knowledge of their Creator than any I have ever heard of. The mild description they give of the inhuman conduct of the captain of a vessel who carried some of them 1000 miles from their place of destination, gives an example of forgiveness which, I dare say, is to be found among no other people but themselves. And surely when we read of an instance of forgiveness, so far above what we would count a prodigy of virtue, we need not be surprised to hear of the spiritual enjoyment they feel, which no doubt is the reward of their Christian conduct. From what I have met with in these journals, I see a very strong inducement to a religious life. Indeed, when I consider that it is a people now living who possess spiritual advantages, which make them superior to the pleasures of this world, I feel this inducement presented with such plainness and truth that it is calculated to make a deeper impression upon me than the most elaborate composition: showing to what extent the Christian duties might be performed, and their rewards experienced, founded on the consolations of ancient Christians.

From the consideration of the advantages these Moravians enjoy, I derive great encouragement to proceed on the good work which, I trust, is begun within me; nor do I derive less when I recognise in each temptation, as it presents itself, a device of the powers of darkness, and know the triumph it produces to a higher order of beings, when they know that their attempts are baffled. — I remain, my dear Sir, with much esteem, yours affectionately, THOMAS SMITH.

No. VI. — DR. CHALMERS TO MR. THOMAS SMITH.

Edinburgh, 1 5th November 1815.

MY DEAR SIR, — I read, with much affection and pleasure, your very interesting communication. I have been thinking much of you; and I trust that the tenderness I feel will never be wounded by any woful apostasy on your part to the spirit and the practices of an alienated world. As to its grosser profligacies, it is my delight to think that you are purely and nobly superior to them; but do all you can to strengthen your abhorrence of them. Let not the withering example of others so much as harden your feelings against the exhibition of them; for it is not enough, my dear Sir, that you keep aloof from the practice of external ungodliness, you should also cherish a most delicate recoilment of mind from the intrusion of every gross and unworthy conception, recollecting that it is to the pure in HEART that our kind and amiable Saviour has promised the blessedness of seeing God.

We read in the Bible of the first love — a phrase which has been much commented upon by theologians, and which is supposed to embrace all that peace, and joy, and ecstatic affections that are felt by the heart, on the first admission of confidence in a God, whom it sees through the medium of the Gospel to be a reconciled Father. I wish you every enjoyment of this kind, which consists with our present state; and many may be those sacred hours of communion with Heaven, which give you the blessed proof of experience that the way you have chosen is, indeed, a way of pleasantness, a path of peace. I have great hopes of you. I love the spirit which animates your letter. I sympathize most cordially with all your taste and admiration for those Heaven-born men who have long been the light of the world; and you will put it down to the right cause when you ascribe it to my anxious and tender regard for you that I point your attention to that part of the Bible where certain are charged with leaving their first love. Oh! do, my much loved friend, cultivate a suspicion of yourself. Keep in firm bond of dependence with the Saviour. Pray unceasingly for the progress of His work in your heart; and while you strive mightily, let it be by His grace working in you mightily. Be assured that there is a call and a significancy in the following directions : — Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. — Work out your salvation with fear and trembling. — Mix trem bling with your mirth. — Pass the time of your sojourning here in fear. — Do aspire after a realizing sense of the holy and the heart-searching God. I want you not to be painfully intense in His service; — you are in earnest, and with God’s blessing you will feel your way; and, I trust, you will come experimentally to know that the way of sanctification, while a way of watchful, unceasing diligence, is also a way of peace, and that in quietness and in confidence you shall have strength.

May I crave a remembrance from you in your hours of intercourse with God. Give me a part in your daily prayers as you have in mine; and let the affection, which 1 believe to be mutual and equally strong and sincere on your part as on mine, be thus kept alive, and receive its constant augmentations on this side of time, till it ripen to the love of a pure and happy eternity.

( I looked into Watts’ “Sermons” the other day. I was much struck with the title of one of them, “The hopeful youth falling short of Heaven.” I had not time to read it, but presume it will be excellent. j You cannot, my dear Sir, you can not err on the side of caution and extreme jealousy of yourself. It is not a jealousy which will disturb you, but it will direct you to the right source of strength and influence, and to the diligent use of that strength in every matter that comes before you. ( I should like you to read that sermon, and to have your opinion of it.^Y..

Give my kindest compliments to Miss Fortune, when you see her. I intend being at home on Saturday — come and sup with me at night, spending a precious hour with me in my study. Let me know if you can read my letters easily, for, if not, I shall make a more careful exertion afterwards. I beg you will always write me at very great length, as close as you can, and filling up the folded spaces of the last page. Tell Mrs. C. that I have not gotten her promised letter, and am disappointed. You say there have only been two walking days for a whole week in Glasgow. Every day lias been fair in Edin burgh, and I have walked every day. But what to me is a still more interesting point of comparison — I have lived in a clergyman’s house, and he is suffered to remain in a state of the most enviable tranquillity. None of that feasting and clamour ing about attentions, and petitioning about poor, and drudgery with the work of institutions, and hard-driving at a multiplicity of secular and never-ending affairs; all of which, unless simplified and abridged, would disgust any man with a place where mere spiritual work is undervalued, and the demands of a clergyman for leisure are neither understood nor sympathized with.

Be assured of my warmest regard and unceasing prayers ° for you. — Yours very affectionately, THOMAS CHALMERS.

No. VII. — DR. CHALMERS TO MR. THOMAS SMITH.

* JBlochairn, 2. si December 1815.

MY DEAR SIR, — (Lest we should miss each other to-day j it occurs to me to state to you, in reference to our conversation of yesterday, that you should not make it a capital aim to obtain clear and immediate views on the doctrine of election; and ( even, though my argument be not thoroughly acquiesced in, I can say, for your comfort, that however luminous my own conceptions may be to my own mind, I have repeatedly failed in my attempts to reach the conviction of others who were men of powerful understanding.

But what I am mainly in earnest about is, that you do not for a single moment slacken or suspend the practical work of sanctification on the solution of any speculative difficulty what ever. If to your faith you add the splendid list of accomplishments set before you in 2 Peter i. 5-7, you will never fall, but make your calling and election sure. You do not see that election inscribed on the records of Heaven; but you are told in plain language what is the instrument by which you make it sure to you on earth. That instrument is diligence, (2 Peter i. 5, 10;) and I trust you will never let down a diligence of which I trust to see the prints upon your character in time, and to share the rewards along with you in eternity.

See 2 Peter iii. 16. I rejoice that you are so impressed with the reality of a powerful and insidious tempter, and I would have you not to be ignorant of his devices. He may turn an anxiety after Christian doctrine into an engine for his purpose ;(and I beg that you will be frank enough to let me know, when you judge it for your practical benefit, that our conversation on that particular subject should be suspended.

It would furthermore give me great pleasure that you wrote me an occasional note, though you had time only for half-a-dozen lines: you should not, my dear Sir, stand upon difficulties with me, and I have to entreat a little more confidence from you in this way than I have yet witnessed. )

No. VIII. — Mu. THOMAS SMITH TO DR. CHALMERS.

s Glasgotv, 22d December 1815.

MY DEAR SiR,-^I read the note you gave me to-day with much interest — this, indeed, has been the case with all I have received from you — but I feel very grateful to discover in your last such a kind and anxious attention to my most substantial welfare?^ You have placed my desire to become acquainted with a particular doctrine of Christianity, in a light in which I think I should myself have viewed it, had I devoted much of my time and thoughts to the subject; but, as the matter stands at present, I trust I am far from neglecting the very few duties I can perform in obedience to the Divine will, in the pursuit of a subject that must have the same effect on my ultimate salvation, whether I am convinced of the exact manner of its operation or not. These are my present feelings on the subject. I know well, however, that I might become so interested in the business as to attend to it in prejudice of more important duties. It is in this view that I see the importance of your warning voice, and that I beg you to lift it often, and oftener than you think there is occasion for it, because I fear very much that you have formed too high an opinion regarding my present state, both as to my religion and morals. It requires a long acquaintance to discover the exact character of any person. Ours, indeed, has been intimate; but there are circumstances which, I think, may have operated with you too favourably towards discovering the true state of mine; and I hope you may take this hint and act upon it, faithfully pointing out what you see amiss, and I in return shall make it my serious business to reform.

As to the doctrine of predestination, without much anxiety, I have obtained a view of it which most entirely satisfies my self; and I only wait for the explanation of what, I must say at present, appears to me irreconcilable, viz., that under the belief of this doctrine, and its actual operation, it is in the power of a person predestined to be saved, by any misconduct on his part to forfeit his election, or vice versa. This really puzzles me a little, and I look to you for assistance. I do not forget, however, that puzzle me as it may, if I act conscientiously in the discharge of my duties to God and man, and possess a firm faith on the merits of my Saviour, both to enable me to accomplish this and to save me from my deficiencies, that I have placed myself in as good a situation to deserve reward as I possibly could; and with this comfort, which I think substantial, I shall quiet my mind, and trusting in my Saviour, I shall not be troubled, (though all the questions theologians ever started were brought to bear against me.

I am aware you may think this quite unphilosophical, birt I am happy in my ignorance, and have the authority of a sage for saying, that he that increaseth wisdom, increaseth sorrow.

My dear Sir, I must now conclude; and I am happy I can say at present what I should never have said in your presence, that I love you above all my friends on earth. Amid all the changes this world can produce, in this I trust I shall not change, and shall carry it with me to a land beyond the world’s influence. THOMAS SMITH.

No. IX. — DR. CHALMERS TO MR. THOMAS SMITH.

Blochairn, 23d December 1815.

MY DEAR SIR, — Your kind note was highly gratifying to me, and, in addition to every other argument for a frequent interchange of them, I think that one mighty advantage is, that it may reduce to a point many an agitated topic, and facilitate the precise solution of many a question which would not be set at rest by the fading and the desultory conversation of whole weeks.

Your question is, “How comes it that a man predestined to salvation has it not in his power to fall away from it” I answer that every man may, if lie will, commit sin unto perdition; but the man predestined to salvation wills not, and does not, commit any such sin. God, who decreed His salvation, decreed and foreknew all the steps that went before it. He knew the effect of every one circumstance upon His volitions; and should the practical effect of our views on predestination be that we turn careless and fall away, then God foresaw this, and knew our final destruction from the beginning, and we shall afterwards know from the event that we are not foreoniained unto life.

( I trust that a thorough and well-grounded faith in this doctrine will at length be formed in you; but, in the meantime, make a vigorous use of all that is clearly and distinctly understood by you. I am much pleased with your humility in thinking that I have overrated your religion and your morals; but I trust I do not overrate them when I say, that you hunger and thirst after righteousness; that measuring you by others you stand at a wide distance from all the gross and vulgar profligacies of this unhallowed generation; and while I fearlessly offer this tribute of respect to your character, will you permit me further to say, that the effect of all your doings would be hurtful did the consciousness of them go to wean you from dependence on Christ, or turn your eye from Him as all your desire and all your salvation? J Go joyfully to God in His name; follow closely in the path of His example; feel your need of His Spirit in every enterprise; have no doubt of your forgiveness through the merits of His blood, coupling with faith in this one testimony, the acceptance of every one saying about the necessity of holiness and self-denial, and the mortification of all that is sinful, and the adornment of the whole man with the graces of the Spirit, and the dedication of the whole life to the will of Him who poured out His soul unto the death for you. LMy heart is greatly enlarged towards you, my dearest of all earthly acquaintances; and it is my prayer that God may more and more purify, and exalt, and Christianize, that friendship which it has pleased Him to put into our bosoms. — Yours ever, THOMAS CHALMERS.

No. X. — DR. CHALMERS TO MR. THOMAS SMITH.

Blochairn, 29th December 1815.

MY DEAR SIR, — When I cannot be present with you in person, I find that it in some manner fills up the disappointment to sit down to an exercise in which I feel my heart to be altogether present with and alive about you. ) fl have been thinking more of your very valuable contribution to our scriptural conference of yesterday, and the use I make of it is to endear me the more to our plan, quite assured that much will result from it. Let it convince us more and more of the prodigious fertility of the Bible; how much lies hidden and unobserved, even after many perusals; and surely, if it be true, that a man may read it an hundred times and find something on his next reading which he missed on all his former ones, (a joint-reading bids fair for multiplying our lessons, and must give a double advantage to each of them who are embarked in it.

Do, my dear Sir, feel how various and how animating a field lies before the man who has resolved on being the altogether Christian. He may look for indefinite attainments in knowledge, as well as for an ever-increasing lustre of accomplishments and of character; and)my earnest, and fervent, and often repeated prayer for you is, that sanctified wholly by the truth as it is in Jesus we may, after running our destined course as fellow-helpers on earth, mingle with the pure families of Heaven, and be found faultless together in the presence of God wjth exceeding glory.

( My heart is greatly enlarged towards you, and I entreat that you will put up with all my warnings, and all my anxieties, and all my devoted earnestness, in behalf of your best interests/) For myself, I have great need of your prayers. May they ascend often, and with affectionate earnestness, to the throne of grace. Be assured that I approve much of your prudence and reserve in the matter of your acquaintances. I trust that the conversation of yesterday will not lead to any precipitate measures on your part. And, on the other hand, that a growing experience as to the best way of walking to those who are without; and a growing strength and intrepidity of character; and last, though not least, a growing affection for others in the Christian and spiritual sense of the term, will at length enable you to be of use to some of those deluded, unhappy young men

—each of whom, let it never be forgotten, has a soul as imperishable as ours; and none of whom are beyond the reach of that grace which teaches and enables us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in the world. — My kindest affection to you, my very dear Sir, No. XI. — MR. THOMAS SMITH TO DR. CHALMERS.

, 2d January 181G.

MY DEAR SIR, — When we are separated it is my most agreeable employment to write to you; and were I once fairly embarked in the business, I know you would have occasion rather to complain of the frequency of my letters than the want of them.

I pursued our yesterday’s topic of consideration for a part of the day with some success, but during the greater part of the evening I was employed in a manner contrary to the disposition in which we should be employed at the beginning of a new period of time, and I was thus unfitted for continuing my beneficial train of thought. At this season of the year I have been always inclining to the desponding tone, when I think of the small progress I have made in the different studies in which I am engaged. But I never, till this time, felt the disappointment at the past, and anxiety for the future, in regard to my religious improvement so strong as at present. I have, indeed, felt something of the kind formerly, and have formed resolutions of a good tendency, but this feeling was never very strong, of course it was not permanent; and the resolutions, I am ashamed to say, were formed chiefly in a dependence on myself to execute them, and thus made, you well know, only to be broken.

It is not so with me now, I hope — my resolutions, founded on the experience of the fate of the past, are not so extravagant as not to admit of the probability of these being executed.

This is well; but I have learnt also from what I have already attempted, that in my own strength I cannot accomplish my desires: that the more my dependence is upon myself, the greater the certainty of my failure; and the more my hope rests on the assistance, promised me from a quarter where there is no deceit or weakness to perform, the more the certainty is of my success. It is on this foundation that I now look forward with joy to the progress of my Christian career, and firmly trust to attain that standard of obedience, and high tone of moral sentiment, with the description of which you have often delighted me. — Yours very affectionately, THOMAS SMITH.

No. XII. — DR. CHALMERS TO MR. THOMAS SMITH.

Kilmardinny, 3d January 1816.

MY DEAR SIR, — You have not yet arrived at an adequate estimate of the interest I take in you, if you think you can either write me too frequently or at too great length..

You speak of uncongenial business or society in the evening, which broke up in some measure the religious frame of your mind on the preceding part of the day. Now, mark well that there will be no such interruptions in the Millennium; there are none such in a Moravian village at this moment; and there would be much fewer than there are in Glasgow had we a more extensive Christian community. The direct road to this is just to make as many Christian individuals and Christian families as we can; and in the exact proportion of our success shall we be rewarded by a freedom from all these temptations which the deadening and secularizing influence of the great majority of companies brings along with it. Let us ever keep by this object then, as our great aim and purpose of our lives here below, combining, at the same time, all that discretion and skill which are necessary in the important work. Let us pray for that most desirable wisdom, the wisdom of winning souls — not forgetting that He who says, keep thyself pure, also I says, lay hands on no man suddenly; and taking care, at the 1 same time, never to convert the latter direction into a shelter for cowardice, or a plea for denying Christ before men. Oh, my dear Sir, you are right to feel your shortcomings, and it is at the same time right to strike the high aim of being perfect even as God is perfect. It is only wrong to conceive such a purpose in a dependence on ourselves — but who shall limit the power of His Spirit? “Who shall question the provisions of the Gospel for the accomplishment of its own avowed object, to redeem us from all iniquity, and to form us again after the image of Him who created us? Do turn from the contemplation of your own worthlessness, to Him for whose sake God will cover as with a cloud all your past sins, and make no more mention of them; and by whose power resting upon you He will enable you to wing your ascending way through the career of practical Christianity — He will send a purifying influence into all the services of the inner man — He will bless your solitude with a sense of His holy but reconciled presence — He will adorn your walk in society with all that is graceful and honourable — He will keep you in thought as well as in conduct undcfiled by the sickening profligacies of this world — He will work you up to a meetness for the inheritance hereafter, and give you a foretaste of its enjoyment even here, by mingling with all your struggles, and temptations, and difficulties — the smile of an approving God — the radiance of an anticipated Heaven. — Believe me to be, my dear Sir, yours most affectionately, THOMAS CHALMERS.

No. XIII. — MR. THOMAS SMITH TO DR. CHALMERS.

Glasgow, 3d January 181 6.

MY DEAR SIR, — In my note to you of yesterday I mentioned something of my forming resolutions. I have to-day been thinking that it is a dangerous matter to form resolutions unless there is a pretty certain prospect of the person who forms being able to accomplish them. The consequence of such resolutions as are made without consideration, and soon trespassed against, is to leave the mind impressed with the facility of destroying its best intentions, and in a state to overleap its most serious projects. I wish you would say something on this subject when you are at leisure. Foster, in his Essay on “Decision of Character,” seems to have neglected this means of destroying the quality he so strongly recommends. — With much esteem and regard, I am, my dear Sir, yours, &c.,

THOMAS SMITH.

No. XIV. — DR. CHALMERS TO MR. THOMAS SMITH.

Kilmardinny, 4th January 1816.

MY DEAR SIR, — I feel much interested in your letter of yesterday’s date, as it touches on a truly important subject — that of resolutions. If you simply mean by a resolution a pur pose, it should be your purpose at this moment to forsake all sin and to attain all righteousness — a purpose which can only be carried into accomplishment by prayer for the promised aid believingly preferred, and daily persevered in. But if, by a resolution, you understand a purpose accompanied with a vow, this is a matter of very great caution, and postponing the full discussion of it to our personal interviews, I shall just observe, in a hurried way, that there is one set of such resolutions which it appears to me to be safe and competent for a man to make and to adhere to, and another set which it would be extremely hazardous. I shall illustrate the two sets by examples: — I could, on a deliberate view of all the effects on my moral character produced by attendance on the theatre, resolve to give up that attendance, and keep by the resolution. I could, on my experience of its effects upon my health, resolve never to sup out at night, and keep by that resolution. These two cases represent a number of others where I might resolve with success, and where the kind of resolution taken might be of the utmost subserviency either to my temporal or eternal interests.

But, again, I would not resolve never to be angry. It is my wish to be delivered from this work of the flesh; but I think I shall the better bring this about by fearfulness, and watchfulness, and humble persevering prayer to God in Christ that He would root this evil thing out of me more and more.

I see symptoms of uneasiness in your letter which most powerfully interest me in the state of my dear and much-loved friend. Should the uneasiness be grounded on any failure in the first set of resolutions, which I believe not to be the case, I would construe it into the token of a declension, from which it should be my most strenuous attempt to recover you Should it be grounded on any failure in the second set of resolutions, then this uneasiness is an essential step in the progress of a Christian. You are rising in your conceptions of the spirituality and extent of the requirements that lie upon you; and you are making purposes to fulfil them; and you are experiencing your own incompetency to the task; and God is humbling you into a closer dependence on the aids of His grace, and on the promises and provisions of His Gospel. Never let go your aspirings, but know that you must be shut up unto Christ as all your sanctification and strength, ere you shall ever succeed in realizing them. You come short of your aspirings, or, in other words, you come short of duty and contract guilt. A sense of this will lead you daily to Christ for forgiveness; and going to him on the other errand of obtaining reformation also, (1 John i. 9,) you will make constant progress in the joys of the Christian faith, and in the diligence of the Christian practice. Be not restlessly or excessively anxious; and if I have not cleared up your difficulties, look forward to our conversations. — Yours, &c., THOMAS CHALMERS.

No. XV. — MR. THOMAS SMITH TO DR. CHALMERS.

Glasgow, 5th January 1816.

MY DEAR SIR, — I am glad you have said so much of resolutions — those which I ever formed were not attended with enough of solemnity in the making, and thus, perhaps, it is that they have been less binding, and I have more readily found the means of avoiding them. I never made a resolution, or purpose, accompanied with the determination of carrying it into effect, and at the same time sealed it with a solemn vow. My resolutions have been made and noted in my journal; I have often the reading of them to remind me of them; I have my prayers to God to enable me to fulfil them; and I have the attempts which I make to resist the habits which might lead me to forsake them; and to all these combined, I trust for the accomplishment of my purpose. As to the subjects of these purposes, they are such as may be accomplished by perseverance; and, by the attention of a few weeks, I have sometimes found myself in a much higher state of obedience to God’s will, in so far as one particular transgression was concerned. These kind of trials have been my employment for some time past; but now I have made a general determination to examine my conduct as a whole, composed of those things I have attempted to root out of it, and I find that examining each separately there is a sad want in it — that I have only reached the mere surface of the business, and in many respects have remained satisfied and consoled that I had done as much as I could accomplish. This has caused me uneasiness, which I am not unwilling to suffer; but like a person who knows his accounts are in confusion, examines them, and finds them ten times worse than lie expected — so, though I knew the examination might be painful to me, yet the extent to which it has been, was never calculated on. And it is in this state of the case that I was induced to give way to my resolution in some degree, although its consequences might have been, and still I hope will be, more productive of good than any I ever yet made. I do not wish to exculpate myself; but since I have told of the uneasiness which the putting of this resolution into effect as a cause of my in part having relinquished it, I must also mention that a great deal of business, and an anxiety to have it finished, has operated heavily upon me, and withdrawn my mind from its more serious occupation. — Yours most sincerely,

THOMAS SMITH.

No. XVI. — MR. THOMAS SMITH TO DR. CHALMERS.

Stockwett Street, January 8th, 1816.

MY DEAR SIR, — This has been a most pleasant day with me, it brought so long a letter from you — the longest I have yet received ;* and to procure another, I shall continue to write to you, trusting in my good fortune to say something which may call forth an answer.

When I sit down to write to you, it is not anything I have previously arranged and thought of which forms the subject, but merely the idea which is uppermost at the moment. I write to you generally in the evening, when I have leisure to review the events of the past day, and it is the impression of this review which is generally communicated to you. After a quiet, retired, and pleasant Sabbath, I find its beneficial effects often during the week, but more especially on the day immediately following it. This has been my condition to-day, confirmed to me by your letter, which left me in the exact state in which I have found myself after some of our most agreeable con-

* For this letter, see Dr. Chalmers’s Memoirs, vol. ii. pp. 30-34.

versations; and I have enjoyed this under a heavy and gloomy atmosphere such as generally has a depressing effect upon my spirits. I have been successful also to-day in contracting my thoughts and bringing them to bear on the subject I chose from my chapter this morning — “If ye had faith as a grain of mustard-seed,” &c.; and when I am successful in confining my thoughts to a good scriptural text, it generally happens that all goes smoothly and successfully along with me; and the reason of this is obvious. Should a man direct his mind to a state superior and independent of this, it places him high above all the adverse fortune which can beset him, and enables him almost to rejoice in the midst of it, while on the other hand it allows him to enjoy as much as he possibly can the success which may attend him. It will not, indeed, permit him to exult immoderately; were it to do so, he would feel discontented when the novelty and first charm of his prosperity wore off; but when he enjoys the present happiness subordinately to a greater in store for him, then should his present joy be converted into grief, he still possesses the ulterior prospect, and where his treasure is, there — bursting through the surrounding objects — will his heart be also. This is a temporal reward which is worthy of being purchased at great expense. It is an insurance against losses of all kinds, and there is less danger of failure on the part of the guarantee than in any ever made on earth. Yet this is only a subordinate and one of the most trivial advantages afforded by the Christian religion. It is, indeed, a religion which ought to be highly venerated, and an interest in it is to be desired in preference to everything else.

There are several topics in your letter of to-day which I should like to write you about, but it would branch out into a correspondence too extensive to be carried on at present, and must therefore be declined. I anticipate with much pleasure the renewal of our personal interviews, which have appeared to me far more valuable since I have experienced their absence. This will be the last opportunity of my writing to you at Kilmardinny, as I understand you return on Wednesday; until then, and thenceforth, I remain, my dear Sir, yours very affectionately, THOMAS SMITH.

No. XVII. — DR. CHALMERS TO MR. THOMAS SMITH.

Kilmardinny, Qth January 1816-

MY DEAR SIR, — Your letter received this day forms a most delightful finish to this series of our correspondence. I could have seen in it the happy Christian frame of the writer, though he had not announced it to me. In point of expression it is free and powerful; in point of spirit it breathes a most serene and tranquil elevation. I am charmed with the growing intelligence it discovers on the highest of all subjects; and, above all, do I inwardly rejoice in observing that my excellent young friend is realizing the peace and the pleasantness which are to be found even here on that way which leads to the felicities and the glories of Paradise.

Will you believe that, for the last 24 hours, I have been the victim of a most distempered melancholy, and that you have been the subject of it? I hesitated for some time whether I should reveal this to you, on grounds which I shall afterwards mention; but I have now resolved on the clear and simple maxim of keeping back from you nothing; and I do find that we have got greatly too far on in our intimacy to stop short of the most entire, unbounded, and universal confidence in each other. The ground of my disquietude was an expression in your note of the 5th, probably ill understood by me, and which I shall explain more fully to you at meeting. All I shall say further about it at present is, that your note, received this evening, has chased from my agitated bosom all its fears and all its anxieties; and it is with tears of gratitude and delight that I acknowledge how much I have been reassured and comforted by your kind communication.

My dear Sir, you may think all this extravagant, but it can be accounted for. You are in one sense the child of my anxious efforts to consolidate and Christianize you. I have not the vanity to think that I began the work; but the work has made progress since I knew you, and I have conceived a deep interest in all its steps. I do not know one single dispensation that would more imbitter my heart than that the work should retrograde. I would feel all the grief of a bereaved parent — it would spread a sad desolation over my spirits — it would be the cruellest of all violence to my affections for one, whom I trust I shall long hold sweet counsel with on earth, and rejoice with in Heaven. Such is the state of my feelings towards you; and I hope that it both explains and apologizes for my extreme watchfulness over you — a watchfulness which, I have some times feared, you would dislike as obtrusive, and suspicious, and troublesome. 0, my dearest of all earthly associates, had the happiness of our friendship been without alloy, it would have been too much for earth; but the malignant tempter, whose power you so firmly recognise, has thrown a mixture of bitterness into it — he has tried to turn the whole to anguish by raising before my fancy the glowing image of your apostasy. Your kind epistle has cleared it away, and I now enjoy a precious interval of repose. All is hushed and tranquillized within me — and I now write from the fulness of a heart which feels no fear and harbours no suspicion. — Yours ever, No. XVIII. — MR. THOMAS SMITH TO DR. CHALMERS.

Glasgow, Qth January 1816.

MY DEAR SIR, — I received your letter of yesterday’s date, and though I expect to meet you to-morrow, I shall take this method of answering a question proposed in it, which I see has arisen from a most stupid confused note of mine of the 5th current.

I made a general determination at the beginning of this year, strictly to examine the state of my mind. I did so — found it so far below my expectation, that it affected my spirits so much as to make me give up the examination, and thus to transgress my determination or resolution. This, as far as I can make out, is what my note of the 5th would say, but seems ashamed, as no doubt there is reason to be, of the avowal

You may be thinking that I shall thus be diverted from my attempt. But this is not the case, for I have since resumed my review, and am at present going on successfully with it.

What I would desire at present is to know, what are the errors which I am most liable to fall into, and to apply myself to the business of their extermination one by one. When this is accomplished, I shall cultivate the virtues which ought to exist in their stead, and the bringing these virtues to perfection will form the business of a whole life, and at its close, though the comfort of having succeeded in the attempt will not be enjoyed, yet the consolation of having seriously made the trial will supply its stead. There is nothing I so much delight in, as in the idea of a character refined and ennobled by a whole life’s attention to the business. Such a character would, in all probability, enjoy more happiness and peace of mind than any attainments in science could afford. It is a discouraging fact, however, that there is not one in thousands who can boast such a treasure — the road to it is exceedingly unfavourable to those who have only for a short time travelled on it, and to people surrounded by others of different opinions about the reward to be attained, or who pursue a quite contrary course, the temptations to deviate are innumerable. Man, by his own strength, cannot conquer them; but by dependence on another’s, lie undoubtedly can, and may realize a finer and purer mind than the ancients ever thought of. From the knowledge of Cowper, which his life and writings give, I think he had attained this character; but it is not in a man who is well known to the public, and whose writings are made with the view of pleasing them — nor in any public character, whose life is handed down to us — that I would be inclined to expect these virtues; — but rather in private characters, who are only known to a few around them, and by whose example the world in general are never benefited.

But, my dear Sir, I must earnestly beg of you to excuse all the deficiencies of my last week’s correspondence. Most of my letters were written in the evening when I was very tired, and all of them hurriedly. It was with a view to obtain answers in return, and in compliance to your request, that they were sent to you. Amid all my faults, I shall always be yours most affectionately, THOMAS SMITH.

No. XIX. — MR. THOMAS SMITH TO DR. CHALMERS.

Glasgovj, 20th January 1816.

MY DEAR SIR, — I do not intend in this letter to say any thing either on one side or the other regarding assemblies for dancing — the subject of our late conversations. I think it better that you should begin the subject, and that I attend you as you prosecute it, and unreservedly give you any objections which may remain with me after the perusal of your letters. And of this freedom of remark, I request you will allow me the unlimited use; for should I be only half-convinced of the danger of attending these parties, if it turns out they are dangerous, it might be a matter of afterthought and deliberation whether the restriction had been properly adopted: and on a tempting invitation being presented, more reasons might appear in favour of the restrictions being injudicious. Thus swayed, I might overturn all my more impartial thoughts on the subject, and commence imperceptibly the business of undermining a proper system of self-denial, which I intend shall be considerately and judiciously planned, and as resolutely and perseveringly adhered to. A few days ago we talked of the frankness which ought to subsist among friends; and I think you were disposed to blame me for a want of it. If I possess a reserved temper, I am equally insensible of it, as of many of my other faults; and in our written correspondence, I hope you will soon perceive that all reserve is banished, and that you receive my sentiments upon any subject which comes in our way exactly as they exist, and to the whole extent of their existence. I sometimes am disposed to be very silent in our conversations, and this most probably has given the appearance of reserve to my conduct; but this silence is of a very different origin indeed, and I blame you for its existence.

Our regular weekly correspondence, I think, will be productive of much advantage. One thing has just now occurred to me, which well demonstrates this: — Should I, when in some unguarded time, be induced to think favourably of any amusement which we have in a proper season examined and condemned — from the mere circumstance of having your reasons stated in writing to recur to, I shall examine what formerly caused me to renounce the favourite object, and the result of the examination will be to set me right and establish me in the path chalked out. — I am, my dear Sir, yours with much affection, THOMAS SMITH.

No. XX. — DR. CHALMERS TO MR. THOMAS SMITH.

20th January 1816.

MY DEAR SIR, — In answer to your much esteemed note of this day, I have to observe, that I do not mean at present to enter into the question of Assemblies for dancing, but shall satisfy myself with a few prefatory remarks. I am quite assured that if you saw it to be against your Christian interest, you would surrender every one inducement you have at present to attend them, and keep studiously and determinedly away from them altogether. I am further assured that could I prove it to be as much your duty to keep away from them, did they expose these interests to the hazard, though not to the certainty of being injured, you would be as obedient to the second demonstration of duty as to the first.

In a word, I presume (and it is with the most unfeigned pleasure, and a heart filled with affection, that I can declare from all that I have observed in you, how I look on the presumption as one of the surest and strongest I ever conceived on any subject) that should you see it to be your duty, either on the first ground or on the second, to refrain from going to Assemblies, you would not hesitate a single moment to put the principle of forsaking all into effect, and bring your habit of general carefulness to oifend in no point whatever to bear on this one point which we have now selected for consideration.

And now, my dear Sir, there is even at this stage of the business a way in which this great initiatory principle of the Christian life may be put into exercise. As you would forsake all in the way of shunning what you knew to be sinful, so you may be in readiness to forsake all whenever what is more doubtful shall be proved to be sinful. In this state of readiness, which it is competent for you at this moment to put on, you will, I am persuaded, resolve against, and strive against, and pray against all partiality and all hypocrisy, it will be the language of your heart — “Lord, teach me thy way that I may walk in it.” Cleanse Thou me from the secret fault of all unfair leaning, and all wilful self-deceit. Let me clearly see thy will and hear thy voice; and here I am in the attitude of a servant to obey thy orders, and be found at the post thou art pleased to assign to me. — It is my business also to be most careful in this matter: wo be unto me if I wilfully mislead you. It is my prayer, my dearest of all earthly friends, that much comfort and direction may be given to us in this correspondence. It may strike out much of what we are not at present anticipating. It may branch into many a devious but important track of inquiry; and I trust that, walking together as friends over the field of Divine truth, we shall end our every excursion with some new spoils of heavenly doctrine to enrich, and comfort, and adorn us. May God prosper us in this enterprise; may He smile propitious on our every attempt to find out His will for our salvation; and may the great and ultimate results of all our converse here be a common mansion in that country of perfect blessedness, where there is no sorrow and no separation. — Yours most affectionately, THOMAS CHALMERS.

No. XXI. — MR. THOMAS SMITH TO DR. CHALMERS.

Glasgow, 23d January 1816.

MY DEAR SIR, — I shall still delay entering upon anything which immediately concerns the question of the effect of a dancing assembly upon a Christian character.

In your note, you mention you are quite assured that if I saw it to be against my Christian interests I would not go; and even go so far as to say, that were they to place these interests even in a hazardous situation, I would be obedient to this second call of duty. This is saying a good deal, and to acquiesce complacently in it, would be going farther, than from the limited knowledge I have of the true state of my mind, would be allowable.

To bring my mind to this subject, totally free of any bias to the one side or other, it would require some little time to consider the value of the recompense, which I place at stake, by acting in such a way as my long-established feelings on the subject would induce me. Surrounded by all the amusements and gaieties of life, I have considered them more in relation to the delight they afforded, than their consistency with the laws of Heaven and my own permanent happiness. But though surrounded on every side by a God and the objects of His creation, I had almost forgotten the Mighty Being from whose presence there is no escaping; and the objects of His creation, long looked upon merely in reference to themselves, have failed to suggest the remembrance of their invisible Creator. In such a situation and circumstances, I cannot bring my judgment to an impartial determination on the subject. But this need not prevent a determination being adopted, which, if it is a just one, must lean to the side against which my prejudices have hitherto been directed. I see the necessity of this; and, perhaps, were I to act prudently, I would renounce the whole business from this moment. This would be right in the mean time; but the great obstacle to this, which I think, however, much to be dreaded, should always be kept in view, is, the danger of a relapse into such a frame of mind as may dispose the person who made his resolutions of doing good, to reject the grounds on which they are founded. It is of great importance, in this event, that these grounds be multiplied and embraced into a general and comprehensive rule of action. And that however trivial any objection may be considered at present, it is of consequence that they should all be brought forward — that there may be no lurking seed of corruption which may spring up in the hour of temptation.

In the course of our correspondence upon this subject, whenever you discover in me an inordinate desire to question anything you advance, I beg you will look upon it as arising from the reasons I have above alluded to. From these reasons, I really believe, that any objections which I shall make will arise, and not from a desire to mix in any company, dangerous to the principles which I am so desirous, for the most weighty reasons, to encourage the growth of, and to preserve them in a state of increasing strength and beauty, till death shall deprive the mind in which they exist of its earthly habitation.

My dear Sir, in this matter we have entered upon, there is much reason to pray to Him whose honour it concerns, that He would give us a distinct view of the case, that the judgment we form may be such as we shall have cause never to be ashamed of. — I remain, my dear Sir, yours very sincerely,

THOMAS SMITH.

No. XXII. — DR. CHALMERS TO MR. THOMAS SMITH.

Charlotte Street, 2±th January 1816.

MY DEAREST SIR, — I would hurry at once into the subjectdid I not feel that our system of correspondence admitted of that free and excursive method which can stop, and deviate, and be arrested by any one point that happens to be started in the course, either of our writing or our talking communications; and you will not, I trust, feel impatient, though I should still be lingering among the preliminaries of our argument. May God keep you in health, and prolong our stay here, if it so please Him, that our notes may swell out to thousands and thousands more; and praying, as I do, that He may give each of us a single eye to His glory, and fill our understandings with the light of His blessed Spirit. I trust that much interesting matter, and much consoling and edifying remark, may pass through each of our hands. You tell me it is saying a good deal to say that you would not wilfully do a thing which put your religious interests to hazard. — It were surely not saying too much of a man, whose ruling principle it was to keep entire the property of his word, to say of him that he would not wilfully put that property to hazard. It is not saying too much of a mother, whose honest anxiety is for the health of her child, to say that she would not wilfully put that health to any hazard. It is not saying too much for your friend, whose earnest aspiring is after the purity and integrity of your religious character, to say that he would not wilfully put you into a situation which hazarded that character. And if for your friend you just substitute yourself, be it your earnest aspiring to keep entire and to advance the reign of Christian principle within you, then I say, what is not less evident than in the three first examples, that you would not wilfully put to hazard your Christian interests.

I suspect, my dear Sir, when you hesitate about pronouncing on yourself in this matter, you complicate the matter by the doubtfulness which still exists in you about the particular question that is betwixt us. But, conceive that doubtfulness done away — conceive it clearly made out, that the act of spending some hours at an Assembly for dancing, carried along with it the chance of one to two, or one to ten, or one to a hundred, that you come away a worse man, and a worse Christian, than you went — then I mistake my dear friend altogether, if I conceive that upon such a hazard being attached to such a big and momentous interest, he would not resolve to shun the temptation altogether, and class this enjoyment among the all things which, in the act of taking to the path of his eternal interests, a disciple of Jesus is bound to forsake.

I do not look on this note as lost to the question. I mean to sift it thoroughly, and am sure that it will open up some deeply interesting traits of Christian speculation. But still it will be the power, not so much of argument as of simple principle acting on a single, and affectionate, and impressed heart, that will carry the question to its practical conclusion. It is the darkness of our depraved wills, and of our entangled affections, that makes it so difficult to pull down the strongholds of obstinacy within us. I speak of the general nature of man — for of you I have nothing to say but all that is kind, and tender, and respectful; and I have to crave of you, my dearest Sir, that you will look again at this matter, and tell me whether you ought to run your Christianity in the way of a clearly made out hazard; and if you say you ought not, would you wilfully, and knowingly, and by a self-originating and deliberative step, do that which you ought not to do?

I hope I shall be able to advance some way into the argument next week — but much is to be done for a clear outset — juul, in the meantime, I am highly gratified by the conclusion of your much valued and most interesting note. Oh, that we were more in the habit of carrying all our doubts, and of committing all our ways, and of subordinating all our wishes to that Father who is in Heaven, and whose yoke is easy — not because He permits any relaxation, which is merely of an earthly nature; but because He gives a peace which passeth understanding, and sheds an animating glory over the whole life of him who is devoted to the will of God in all His works and in all His ways. — Yours with the utmost regard, THOMAS CHALMERS.

No. XXIII. — DR. CHALMERS TO MR. THOMAS SMITH.

Charlotte Street, 28th January 1816.

MY DEAR SIR, — I know well that it is a less trial of delicacy to talk on religious opinions than to talk on religious feelings — and the same is true of writing. I have not heard whether my last Sabbath attempt was approved of by my dearest friend ;* but I shall make a second similar attempt this evening, and shall only add at present, that though I should not be surprised at your not answering me in kind, yet I would be highly pleased if you did so answer me; and I trust that the day is coming when not one barrier shall stand in the way of that full com- * Sec Dr. Chalmers’s Memoirs, vol. ii. pp. 34, 36.

in union of soul, which I long to be more and more established betwixt us in what remains of our earthly intercourse.

My prayer, then, for you in particular, is, that your health may be firmly restored — that you may, for many years, see much of the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living — that you may get as much prosperity as you will feel inclined to employ to the entire honour of Him who gives it — and may meet with as much adversity as is necessary to refine and exalt your affections away from the vanities of a treacherous world. I pray particularly that God might purge away from your bosom every one reservation you might be disposed to make upon the integrity of His right to all your substance, and to all your services — that not one taint of that conformity to the world, which He bids you abstain from, might remain upon your character — that, with a noble consistency of principle, you might be enabled to make one entire surrender of all you have, and all you are, to His entire claim of authority over you — that all that friendship of the world, which is enmity against God. may be renounced by you as a fair but ruinous temptation — and all that love of the world, which is opposite to the love of the Father, may be extirpated in its very least degrees and remainders from your soul.

And while I thus pray, with all the fervency of a most longing and affectionate regard for you, that you may never, never be brought under the power of those entanglements which would make the latter end worse than the beginning, it would be to me a high matter of gratitude to God, that He speedily accomplished upon you the promise of all that peace, and all that pleasantness, and all that respect and acknowledgment even from those who at first were gainsayers, which are generally found to succeed the first victories of the aspiring Christian, over the trials which thicken around him at the outset of his career.

My prayer extends from yourself to your relations — all of whom I love. May God prolong the life of your brother, and bear up the weight of your father’s old age. — May Miss Smith be a distinguished ornament to her family; and may all the graces of the Spirit form upon her into one lovely assemblage.

In reference to the tenderness which I feel for you, and which it delights me to think is not without a kind return of good-will on your part, I pray that God would subordinate the whole of this unlooked-for intimacy to His own will and His own glory. May He root out all that is idolatrousall that would occupy His own place in our heart — all that would offer to depose duty from its lawful demand on our time, on our attention, on our talent. May He enable me, in particular, to introduce a little more self-government into this affection, that it might not run away with me — that it might not distress me by vain and needless anxieties — that it might not make me too obtrusive of my own will, or my own way, or him who is the object of it — that I might be preserved from saying anything which may make my brother to offend — that I may, at all times, be enabled to acquit myself with wisdom — and that, as you occupy by far the highest place in the scale of my earthly friendship, the union might be perfected in Heaven, and we be found faultless in the presence of God and before the throne of His glory. — My dear Sir, yours most affectionately, No. XXIV. — MR. THOMAS SMITH TO DK. CHALMERS.

Glasgow, Slst January 1816.

MY DEAR SIR, — Your letter goes upon a wrong track when it supposes me to have said in mine, that were the propriety of dancing Assemblies doubtful, I would hesitate about relinquishing all thoughts of attending them. I merely meant you to understand that I might be so influenced by allurements to go

D to them, that their true hurtful effects upon the character might be obscured, and that thus misled I could go to the Assemblies, though the effect might be dangerous. My intention in saying this was to put you in fair possession of the knowledge that those allurements did exist, and that you might be enabled to write more to the purpose by guarding me against any influence of this kind. And I feel no hesitation in saying, that I shall not go to these companies if I am persuaded there is anything of even a doubtful appearance about their propriety.

At this moment, I am neither more nor less decided on this subject than when it was first started. I am placed, in one respect, in a better situation than I was then. I have undertaken carefully to examine the different grounds of the reasons why I either should go or not, as they concern a Christian life, and by the result of this examination I arn resolved to be guided.

The difficult matter appears to be how to judge of the merits of the case. Many go to these Assemblies who possess the best characters, and rank among the most religious in town; and many do not go to them from reason of their hurtful influence upon the character, and this latter class are at least as far advanced in Christian attainments as the former. If we are to form an opinion of the propriety of these parties from the attendance or absence of the people accounted religious around us, I think it would just land us in the doubtful point. This is what I most anxiously wish to avoid; and for other reasons it would certainly be much better that this, and any other question of the same kind, was decided on other principles than the example of the world. Its customs and morals vary with every generation; and if we consider that though we are blinded by the example of others to do good or evil, yet we shall be judged and receive our sentence according to the true nature of our actions, whether done in concert with our neighbours or not, we shall find no great reason to rest satisfied with our conduct merely because that of others is the same. — Yours with much affection, THOMAS SMITH.

No. XXV. — DR. CHALMERS TO MR. THOMAS SMITH.

Charlotte Street, 6th February 1816.

MY VERY DEAR SIR, — You may think it strange that previous to discussing the effects of dancing Assemblies on your own mind, I should resort, as my first argument against them, to the pernicious effect of your example on the minds of others. I do it for a reason which will afterwards evolve itself; and I come direct to the assertion, that within the limits of such a room, the ears of the young are exposed to improper conversation; opportunities are afforded them of beginning and of perfecting improper intimacies; occasions of sin are multiplied; actual parties may be formed for the commission of wickedness; and whether the young, in whose behalf I am anxious to perpetuate the preventive system, be actually drawn into such parties or not, at all events their delicate abhorrence of evil is blunted, and the safeguard of that natural and instinctive repugnance which forms the defence of youth, and which, to my eye, constitutes its finest and its loveliest ornament, is enfeebled by the rudeness of such an exposure. Now, my dear Sir, it is possible for a family party to keep all its members together; but why go to a place where a vigilant and fearful anxiety of this kind is necessary? But, in point of fact, this vigilance is not kept. Young men of decent families are at liberty to expatiate over the whole surface of the room that contains them, and I aver it on what I have learned both from yourself and others, that this liberty cannot be taken without such exposures as serve to harden and familiarize them with what is gross; or, in other words, they are in a far more direct way, by being at an Assembly, to corruption, both of principle and of practice, than if at home they were surrounded with the salutary influence of aifectionate parents and delicate sisters, and sober family habits, and religious converse, mixed up with the judicious tempering of cheerful society, by inter course among congenial neighbours, a varied and improving reading, or the vigorous prosecution of some great acquirement in knowledge, or anything else that can make home agreeable, and harmonizes with the virtue and the sober-mindedness of a character still untainted by the profligacies of a world lying in wickedness.

Now, it is not enough that you say, I would never leave my party; I would never go among the half-intoxicated acquaintances I have at the other end of the room; or even if I did, I would not be influenced by any example of theirs. What you would not suffer from all this others would, and you, by your presence, have sanctioned an avenue of intercourse between the corrupt and the untainted — have levelled one barrier of defence between the purity of domestic and the danger of general society — have multiplied the points of contact between the younger and the older in wickedness — and have contributed your share to the general amount of that mischief which results from the letting in of a worldly influence on minds not yet trained to the darkness and deceitfulness of the world’s ways. More of this in my next. — Yours most affectionately, THOMAS CHALMERS.

No. XXVI. — MR. THOMAS SMITH TO DR. CHALMERS.

StocJcweU Street, 8t7i February 1816.

MY DEAR SIR, — Your note has afforded me great satisfaction. I think it has begun a revolution in my sentiments of the consequences which arise from attending Assemblies.

All along I have considered the propriety of my attending them almost exclusively as it was calculated to affect myself, and I have paid very little attention to the effect my attendance might have upon others. Your note has opened a new field of objections, arising from this quarter, and I see that they are to have more effect upon my ultimate decision upon this subject than anything which has yet been brought forward. I do not mean to say, that what produces a baneful effect upon the minds of others will not also produce the same upon mine; but I do not recollect of being thus affected at any amusement of the kind which I have engaged in, nor do I see their improprieties in so strong a light as you have done. I know that such improprieties, and great exposures to depart from every delicate feeling, do exist in an assembly, and which, if not strictly guarded against, may produce the worst consequences to those who expose themselves to its influence. These, I trust, I should be enabled to overcome, but they are such as I would be afraid to expose any person for whom I had a regard to the danger of encountering.

This. I think, ought to decide the question, (whether there is ground to believe that these Assemblies would have a bad effect upon myself or not,) that I perceive there lies danger in them to others who might be influenced to go from my example. Knowing this, were I to go, it would surely evince the most direct disobedience to one of the most generous feelings of the heart — love to our neighbour. Were I to appear at an assembly with the feeling that I myself was safe from its poisonous influence, and knew how to guard myself, and therefore had nothing to do with those around me, it would then be time to fear that all Christian influence had departed from me. I should then have reason to believe that my avidity to gratify a taste for worldly amusements had so blinded me to all perception of the dangers resulting from them, that I was gradually indulging myself to an extent from which I could not recover. I would not at any time have gone to any place had such a prospect of its consequences been set before me; and it is only from considering deliberately any doubtful step that we can arrive at the right conclusion how to proceed. I consider it a fortunate circumstance that this subject was started; it is dreadful to think that indulgence in this single amusement might have been the origin of sins which would lead to utter condemnation, and that in this uncommon manner I have been diverted from it. — I am, my dear Sir, yours very affectionately,

THOMAS SMITH.

No. XXVII. — DR. CHALMERS TO MR. THOMAS SMITH.

Charlotte Street, l&th February 1816.

MY VERY DEAR SIR, — I will not disguise the satisfaction I felt on receiving the information conveyed by your note, — a satisfaction which you have kindly cleared of every alloy by your subsequent assurance that the resolution stated is the unmingied effect of conviction, and that so far from having been led to it by a respect for human authority, the suspicion of such an influence had suspended and kept back your resolution longer than it would otherwise have been. And in return for this most gratifying intimation, I have to assure you that the joy with which I rejoice over the friend of my bosom is not founded on the mere act of his abstaining from Assemblies, but on the evidence which this act affords of a mind fearlessly resolved to take the line of principle, and to follow wherever conscience and revelation shall lead the way.

Your intimation leaves me at entire liberty, in taking up the subject of example, to announce my sentiments not more strongly than I would have done — for sorry should I be did even a respect for your feelings influence me to the suppression of truth — but more strongly than I would have been inclined to do. The delightful spirit which breathes through your last note saves all my delicacy on this point; and let me express

Mli. THOMAS SMITH. 47

myself as strongly as I may, I rejoice to find that I speak in full harmony with the sentences which have already flowed from your pen.

Suppose, then, a man anxious for his own Christianity to go to an Assembly; to be aware of the exposures which were to be met within the four corners of the room where it was held; to wrap himself up in all the defences of that caution and vigilance which are prescribed to him; to keep studiously aloof from every questionable association; nay, so far to com mand his spirit as to put it into trains of pious contemplation, and after having acted his part so nobly and so well, to retire with all the triumph of conscious satisfaction, because his conduct had sustained no injury, and his principles had suffered no pollution. Combine all this gratification at the safety of self with an inconsiderateness and unconcern about the others who had not acted their part as he did, and wrho have therefore suffered more by their attendance than they would have done had they kept within the inclosure of the family mansion; and with all the semblance of a Christian does this man exhibit the very essence of selfishness — not confining a trifle to himself which he withholds from others, but satisfied that he alone, of all the people there who have the capacities of an immortal duration as well as he, should bear away his chance for immortality as good and as entire as he brought it, and making it no subject of care or of concern at all, though the people with whom he is surrounded should, by the history of that evening, have made themselves more the children of hell than before, should have drunk in more of the poisonous spirit of the world, should have strengthened the barrier which lies across the path of their return to God, and thrown themselves at a wider distance from the offers of pardon and the calls of repentance than ever. This is not considered by many, but I tremble to think of the awful responsibility which inconsideration brings along with it. The people who did not consider were the people whom God pours an exclamation on, and denounces anger against — “Ah! sinful nation” — and note the clause — “children that are corrupters.” These corrupters did not consider. They did not think of the mischief they were doing. They felt not the awful weight of criminality and of condemnation they were bringing upon themselves; but they did not escape for all this; and let it never be forgotten that the frequenters of Assemblies are just such inconsiderate corrupters, and that their power of corruption is just so much the greater as their character and credit stand before the world for the degree of Christianity they have attained. The more an example is looked up to, the more responsible is he who shews it for every flaw and every deficiency which may be found in it.* — I am, my dearest Sir, yours with much affection, [Free Church Manse, Hawick, 20th April 1849. — LEAR SIR, — I beg to enclose for your inspection a series of letters addressed by our venerated friend, Dr. Chalmers, to different members of the family with whom he lodged in Hawick, about the commencement of his ministry, or during the short period when he officiated as assistant in the neighbouring parish of Cavers. It is singularly interesting to observe the strong and enduring grasp which his warm heart had taken of a family who had shewn some kindness to him in the days of his youth, but who, while moving, comparatively, in circumstances of humble life, were not remarkable for any of the high mental endowments by which he was himself so eminently distinguished. When his vast mind was most thoroughly engrossed with the magnificent schemes which are likely to tell on the wellbeing of many coming generations, he seems never to have lost sight of them. And even at the period of the Disruption, when great principles were struggling for the ascendency, and the burden and responsibility of every onward movement were resting almost exclusively upon himself, we find him, like his

* This correspondence was interrupted by that illness of Mr. Smith which ended in his death. See Memoirs, vol. ii. pp. 37-61.

Divine Master at Bethany in the days of old, turning aside from all matters of public and most engrossing concern, that he might sympathize with them in their afflictions, and send to them those brief but precious communications, which fell like the balm of the sweetest consolation over their sorrowing hearts. In this respect alone, these letters are valuable memorials of our venerated father; and if there be few men in the history of this fallen world who have held a larger place than himself in the affections of his brethren of mankind, it is perhaps so far to be accounted for by the fact, that the lovingkindness of his own nature was so childlike in its simplicity, and so active and untiring in all its manifestations, that it seemed scarce possible for the most callous heart to resist it.

These letters, moreover, are possessed of additional interest, inasmuch as they embody in themselves incontestable evidences of the great moral change which, under the teaching of the Divine Spirit, he was made personally to undergo. In the earliest of these communications, there are beautiful traces of the native kindliness of his disposition. At the same time there is nothing to indicate that the love of Christ was constraining him, or that he sought for principles of action, or for elements of enjoyment elsewhere than within the dark and cloudy horizon of this brief and mortal life. But ere long the light breaks upon him. The great realities of the eternal world are brought vividly before him. The wellbeing of the never-dying soul becomes the one thing that is needful. And the correspondence which commences almost, if not altogether, in the spirit of a man who was living without God and without Christ in the world, exhibits him, as it advances, rising step by step in the scale of Christian attainment till it closes at last with the clearest and most impressive discoveries of the unsearchable riches of the Saviour’s grace. — Believe me to be, dear Sir, yours very truly, J. A. WALLACE.

far. Dr. Hanna.~]