Letters to Mr. Lenox of New York
Edinburgh, 17th January 1842.
MY DEAR SIR, — Your great kindness to our Church entitles you to know that we are still in deep waters, and to all appearance in circumstances of greater danger under our New Conservative than under our old Whig Government. Meanwhile, I trust that a calm and resolute principle of adherence to the great cause of spiritual independence is in steady progress throughout our land; so that when the crisis comes, I hope and pray that our Church will be enabled to acquit herself with faithfulness and honour; and that, whether she continue or cease to be a National Establishment, she will preserve unimpaired her moral weight in the country, and have the support, as well as the sympathy, of all good men.
In the expectation of hearing from you soon, I ever am, my dear Sir, yours most gratefully and respectfully, No. CCCXXVII.
Edinburgh, 4th May 1842.
MY DEAR SIR, — The Conservatives have used us very ill; but I have reason to believe are now somewhat staggered at the resolute and unbending front of the majority in the Church. They flattered themselves that we would give in rather than lose our endowments; and they find it a more difficult problem than they had first counted on, now that they are opening to the conviction of such a disruption, on the event of their persevering in their present policy, as will lead to the separation from the National Church of so many hundreds of her best clergy as could, on the strength of their respectability and influence, carry the great bulk of the population along with them, and resolving themselves into a Home Mission, would take possession of the land.
“We are now beginning to organize the country into Defence Associations, that, if necessary to relinquish our present inr comes, which of course would be left in possession of a Church then Erastianized, we may from their contributions obtain such support as might be raised for the Non-Erastian Church of Scotland.
All, however, is yet in a state of uncertainty. Our Assembly begins to sit to-morrow fortnight. The appointment of the Marquess of Bute to be our Commissioner, is variously interpreted. That the object of this arrangement is a special one, there can be no doubt, as in usual times the office is conferred on a poor nobleman, whereas Lord Bute is possessed of great influence and great wealth, and withal had earned the gratitude of our Church by his munificence in the cause of Church Extension. Some are apprehensive that the object is to conciliate so many as might convert the minority into a majority on the side of Lord Aberdeen’s Bill with some plausible modification. Let me hope, on the other hand, that our majority will remain firm and unbroken; and should such be the result of their experiment, let me further hope that the Government will be wise enough to conclude that ours is a position from which we are not to be driven, and that they will desist from their attempts to force or to carry it.
This is the day in which the Scottish Church question comes before the House of Commons. — I am, my dear Sir, yours most gratefully and truly, THOMAS CHALMERS.
No. CCCXXVIIL
Edinburgh, 28t7i July 1843.
MY DEAR SIR, — I have this morning received your noble benefaction of ,^1100. I last evening received a letter from Mr. M’Millan, overflowing with gratitude to Mr. Johnstone and yourself, for the similar sum which he had just received at your hands, and which at once places him in a state of sufficiency and perfect ease. May the Giver of all grace plentifully reward such sacrifices for the good of His cause and His kingdom in the world.
“We are to send out Dr. Cunningham and another on an American mission. He may go soon enough to take this letter; but if not, I shall send by him notes of introduction to yourself and Mr. Johnstone, not that either of you shall add to the princely donations which you have already bestowed on us, but that you may confer the benefit of your information and advice in regard to the likeliest methods for the prosecution of their objects.
I rejoice in the liberty you have given as to the disclosure of your name. I have no doubt whatever as to the great expediency of making it known in the way of example and excitement to others; and I shall feel it a great additional favour, if you release me from the tie of secrecy in regard to your former benefactions, and more especially for that object where with Dr. Mackay is connected.
I shall instruct Dr. Cunningham to take out all the documents which might furnish you with the information of our doings. Our Financial Committee has now begun to issue a Monthly Statement, and there is an article furnished by my self to its second number, entitled, “The Increasing Prosperity yet Increasing Difficulties of the Free Church,” which will at once let you perceive the great importance both of what you have done for Mr. M’Millan and of your second donation, that to the General Fund being allotted to the building of churches rather than to the sustentation of ministers.
I shall be delighted to meet with the artist when he arrives, and will be most happy to give him the sittings which he requires of me.
I am sure it will gratify you to hear that the ministrations of our Free Church clergymen are palpably becoming more powerful and spiritual than they were. May God prosper His own cause by the instrumentality of these devoted and self-denying men.
The Moderates are carrying it with a high hand. In my own parish (Morningside) they have ejected the minister from his quoad sacra church, and the service has been carried on in my own house for three Sabbaths to a congregation one day of towards 400 people; while in the residuary there were by all sorts of forced appliances, about 150, rapidly dwindling, and now, I believe, short of a hundred. We are to have a tent during autumn, and expect to have our church built by the beginning of winter.
I beg that you will convey the expression of my grateful regards, and the assurance of my earnest prayers for the two unknown friends who have supplemented so handsomely both the Kirkcudbright and the general donation. — I ever am, my dear Sir, yours most gratefully and cordially, No. CCCXXIX.
Edinburgh, 24th February 1844.
MY DEAR SIR, — I return you my most cordial thanks for the munificent offering of £ 250 from the first Presbyterian congregation in New York. You say nothing as to the destination of it, and I shall therefore leave that undecided till the next General Assembly — making it depend on the then state of our funds whether it will go to sustentation or building.
I am affected by your observation that we shall never meet in this world. Few things would afford me greater pleasure than the quiet of a few weeks, were I permitted to enjoy it, under your hospitable roof. I beg that you will present my best and most grateful regards to the Misses Lenox; and in the hope of meeting both you and them in Heaven, believe me ever, my dear Sir, yours most truly, THOMAS CHALMERS.
No. CCCXXX.
Edinburgh, 1th October 1844.
MY DEAR SIR, — I lose not a moment in acknowledging your munificent donation of ,£200, in aid of our proceedings in the West Port. I shall not annoy you by the expression of that gratitude which I most intensely feel. May the prayer of Saint Paul, in 2 Corinthians ix. G-15, be fully accomplished upon you and yours. In a few days I trust that we shall be able to prepare a narrative, with a few extracts from our more recent minutes, respecting our operations in the West Port, and
2o by which you will be enabled to know what has been done and is doing in that locality. It seems to be exciting very considerable attention in this part of the country; and for myself I look upon it to be of such paramount importance, that I mean to confine my efforts to the prosecution of the experiment.
Let me crave a part and an interest in your prayers. I have long wished that my last decade, that is, from the age of sixty to seventy, should be a Sabbatical one — a season of peace and piety. Four years of that decade have now passed away; and, instead of retirement and repose, it has been with me a period of bustle and of manifold engrossments. But there is a Providence in these things in which it is our becoming part to acquiesce; and I think it will gratify you to know that your various communications, charged as they have ever been with all that is kind, and genial, and refreshing, have ever operated as cordials to soothe and to sustain me amid the discouragements and the conflicts of an arduous warfare. — Ever believe me, my dear Sir, yours most gratefully and truly, No. CCCXXXI.
Edinburgh, 30^ December 1844.
MY DEAR SIR, — I have requested my secretary for the West Port to draw up a narrative of our proceedings there. I should like, in fact, to send you quarterly reports from that very interesting locality — at the bottom of the scale it is said both in respect of depravity and destitution, and therefore all the fitter as the field of an experiment for trying the efficacy of educational and moral influences. I do hope that you will look upon the narrative as bearing evidence to a satisfactory progress, for which, however, I desire humbly to acknowledge my entire dependence on the Giver of all grace. There are some with whom I cannot sympathize, who undervalue all mechanism in the enterprises of Christian usefulness, and tell us of the Spirit as the alone agent of all that is really good. There are others again, whose faith stops short at the secondary, and who despise as fanatical the doctrine of a spiritual influence. The way to adjust this difference is not to conflict these two elements, but to compound them. The Spirit does all, but through an instrumentality to which the Bible guides us; and it were well if we could so combine matters as to work the instrumentality with all diligence, yet pray for grace from on high with all earnestness. If we neglect the former, nothing will be done; if we neglect the latter, an impressive mockery awaits all the confidence of human activity, and all the proud decrees and anticipations of human wisdom.
I should feel it a great favour if you or any of your friends would present me with your views on American Slavery — a subject on which I am most anxious to be directed aright, de testing as I do slavery in all its forms; yet not prepared for those impetuous measures for which the ultras on both sides of the Atlantic are vociferating so loudly. I feel the greatest value for your kindness in having obtained Dr. Alexander’s deliverance on Dr. Anderson’s works. Perhaps you could do me a similar service on this subject of slavery, on which I should like if I could make up my mind by the beginning of April. — I ever am, my dear Sir, yours very affectionately, No. CCCXXXII.
Edinburgh, 21st April 1845.
MY DEAR SIR, — I feel exceedingly obliged by your valuable and most interesting statements on the subject of American Slavery. My growing infirmities and the weight of other engagements have determined me to give up the duties henceforth of a Member to our General Assembly, else I should have taken part in the discussions which will certainly take place in May. But as I am in some degree pledged to make some manifestation of my views upon the question, I propose to prepare next week a letter for publication on the subject in one of the newspapers. Meanwhile, I shall derive the greatest aid from your representations, without, of course, committing you in the least by any formal notice of them. Our views are substantially the same, else I would never have written such a letter to Dr. Smyth of Charleston as I did, and upon which Lewis Tappan, on your side of the water, has commented so outrageously.
I received the other day from America the last Report of the Foreign Board of Missions. I observe that the Abolitionists have been trying to extort from them a declaration against slavery. Really this is quite intolerable, that they must thus insist on binding up and implicating their undoubted good thing with all the other good things that are going on in the wrorld, and fasten the burden of their cause upon every other, when in fact, on every principle of good tactics and the right division of employment, each cause speeds infinitely better when prosecuted separately and upon its own distinct merits. I do hope that this obtrusive and ever-meddling impertinence of theirs will have an effectual check laid upon it. It is most provoking, and on no account more so than that it impedes the very object which their own hearts are set upon, but which the hearts of others, as zealous and only wiser than they, are as much and as honestly set upon as theirs are. — I ever am, my dear Sir, yours most gratefully and cordially, THOMAS CHALMERS.
No. CCCXXXIII.
Edinburgh, 15th July 1845.
MY DEAR SIR, — I will not annoy you by the expressions of my gratitude for the munificence by which you have conferred such facilities and enlargements on our operations in the West Port. If I evinced any feeling of restraint in making our necessities known to you, it proceeded from no distrust in your willingness to give, but, on the contrary, from the feeling that it is ungenerous to take advantage of the well-known liberality of those whose previous benefactions have exposed them to demands and expectations from all points of the compass. There is a species of rapacity, I could almost call it harpyism, even among professing Christians, which has often scandalized me, and which discovers itself by a universal set in from all sides on the man who is at all signalized by his past liberalities. I think that the proper re-action were all the greater delicacy and reserve towards him who had already done and expended so much upon the cause.
I admire exceedingly the Report of your Assembly on the subject of Slavery — done, I think, with admirable tact and wisdom. I very much like, too, the deliverance of our own Assembly (May 1845) on the same question, and confidently hope that you will approve of it. In regard to- my letter, it appeared in the “Witness” about the end of April; and had I not thought that you would have seen it there, I should have instantly forwarded a copy to you.* Lest, however, this may not be the case, I have sent orders to Mr. Macpherson to copy it over for you, and send it in his own hand-writing. I do hope that all the ultraism to which we have been hitherto exposed is set at rest, and that the great cause of an ultimate abolition of slavery will speed all the faster and all the surer in consequence.
And now, my dear sir, may I beg that you will now begin
to cherish the purpose of a visit to Scotland next summer, that
your determination may be formed in time, and that we may
be apprized of the month when we may look for your arrival.
* See Memoirs, vol. iv., Appendix, pp. 581-591.
It will give both myself and Mrs. Chalmers the greatest pleasure to receive you and the Misses Lenox under our roof; and, if God be pleased to spare us, I shall have much to say and perhaps something to shew on the methods of Christian philanthropy. Few things would so delight me as the formation of a personal acquaintance with you. We think it possible that Jacob Abbot, now of your city, may be a sojourner in Edin burgh for some time next summer; and with you as our guest, and him as our frequent visitor, I should expect much light to be thrown on the comparative ecclesiastical systems of Britain and America. But his coming is an uncertainty; and do not therefore, I implore you, suspend your movement upon his. — Yours with the utmost esteem and cordiality,
THOMAS CHALMERS.
No. CCCXXXIV.
Edinburgh, 20th October 1845.
MY DEAR SIR, — I avail myself of the Quarterly Report for October to add a few sentences. Your welcome letter of the 25th ulfc. came to me some days ago; and I have detained this for a few days in the hope that I might be able to announce the arrival of your pamphlet on the instruction of slaves in the South. It has not yet, however, made its appearance. I re ceived, however, by the same post which brought your letter to me, the deliverance of the American Foreign Board of Missions, and I think it a remarkably wise and well-weighed decision which they have come to, and quite of a piece with the high character of that most intelligent and enlightened body. — I ever am, my dear Sir, yours with the greatest esteem and regard, THOMAS CHALMERS.
No. CCCXXXV.
Edinburgh, 11 th December 1845.
MY VERY DEAR SIR, — The pamphlet respecting the religious instruction of the negroes in the south reached me some time ago. It delights me to find that so much is doing; and I do hope that, instead of having to report only a fractional good, we shall hear shortly of a movement towards a universal Christian education of the coloured trihes in these States. I along with your letter yesterday received two papers, sent me, I be lieve, on account of Dr. Leonard Wood’s views on the question of slavery. He seems to have taken a sound view, and to have arrived at a right and well-weighed deliverance upon the subject. I feel confident that the abolition of slavery is far likelier to come soon by acting on these calmer and more comprehensive surveys of the matter in all its bearings, than on the extreme views of the ultra abolitionists. I can assure you, that the direction which this business has taken, elevates greatly, in my estimation, the wisdom and force of principle which appear to pervade in general the ecclesiastical mind and philanthropic public of America,
May the Giver of all grace pour His richest blessings upon you and yours.
With affectionate regards for the Misses Lenox, I ever am, my dear Sir, yours very gratefully and with the utmost esteem and regard, THOMAS CHALMERS.
No. CCCXXXVI.
Edinburgh, September 1840.
MY VERY DEAR SIR, — I observe, and with the greatest satis faction, your growing sense of the spiritual destitution which obtains among the working-classes of your own land, or the great bulk and body of your common people — the very impression which I received thirty years ago from my first observations of the state of Glasgow, and on which I have been incessantly acting and arguing ever since. There is indeed a very great delusion among those who, satisfied with a super ficial and rapid survey of the ecclesiastical state of a country in the number of churches, and the bustle of a full and crowded attendance on the most popular and prosperous of these, infer a sufficiency in the means and methods of Christian education for the community at large. I am very confident, that the more minutely and statistically the matter is inquired into, the more certainly will it be found, that your own America, like our own Britain, labours under the burden of a population miserably deficient in respect to all the observances of a Christian land. I see no remedy for the practical heathenism into which they have fallen, but a vigorous appliance of the territorial system, along with the indispensable grace from on high. I should rejoice in observing your liberality taking its direction towards the supply of your spiritual necessities at home; knowing, as I do, that they are such as might well absorb the means, not only of one, but of many Christian philanthropists, however richly gifted with the blessings of abundance they might be. I repeat, that I should feel it a most selfish and unjustifiable thing on my part, should I continue to divert your attention from what I hold to be far the most profitable and fruitful direction to which you can betake yourself.
I expect to send you a pamphlet which I recently published on the Evangelical Alliance. I had great pleasure in meeting with so many of the American brethren on their way to London. I should like to know your views upon this subject. Do you happen to know Mr. and Mrs. Marcus Spring, and Miss Fuller, all of New York? — they were recently with me. Douglas the slave, and Lloyd Garrison, have recently come to Edinburgh and opened their batteries on the Free Church, which I trust, on the other hand, will stand its ground against them.
I will not relinquish the hope, and never can give up the desire of seeing you in this country. I rejoice that we are still at peace with America. Your remarks on a deviation from orthodox theology being slight enough at first not to endanger salvation, but diverging at length into deadly error, arc of first-rate importance. — With best regards to the Misses Lenox, I ever am, my dear Sir, yours most cordially and gratefully, No. CCCXXXVII.
Edinburgh 28th October 1846-
MY VERY DEAR SIR, — I will not attempt any adequate utterance or expression of my gratitude for your letter of the 8th, because I know well that this is not the return which you have much, if any value for. But I feel sure that a better return, and one by which you will be far better pleased, is the simple information, that you have enabled me to meet every existing engagement, and so got me out of all my difficulties. I have no need at present for more money from you; and I have the confident hope beside, that I shall be enabled to proceed in all time coming on home resources alone. At the same time, it is altogether due to the unexampled generosity of your whole treatment of me, to let you frankly know, that should I require it, I shall unreservedly make the statement to you of my wants, though I must again couple this with the announcement of my expectation, that the Christian philanthropy on this side of the water (now more alive to the efficacy of our territorial proceedings) will, as it ought, meet every fair demand which I shall make upon it.
It may perhaps interest you to know, that of the money re ceived, which includes all your own most munificent donations, I got d^SOO from a lady, and four or five single hundreds from as many individuals. Lord Jeffrey, the celebrated Edinburgh reviewer, is one of these, who takes a most friendly interest in our doings. I had many donors of £50, £’20, £10, &c. &c. And what to me was extremely gratifying, upwards of 200 subscriptions from the West Port itself, ranging from the smallest copper coin (half a farthing) to £2.
Do tell the Misses Lenox, with my affectionate regards, that I will not let go the hope of yet seeing them and you in Scotland. But let us never cease to pray, and to prepare for taking up our residence in that eternal city whose builder and maker is God. May He who is now employed in preparing a place for us, prepare us for the place. I was very much interested by a recent letter of yours on the new theology. The old is better. May it come to us not in word only, but in power. Mrs. Chalmers joins with me in kindest regards. — I ever am, my dear Sir, yours with highest esteem,
THOMAS CHALMERS.
o
No. CCCXXXVIII.
Edinburgh, 2d January 1847.
MY DEAR SIR, — You will observe from my last letter, that I very gladly and gratefully accept of your kind proposal as to the additional payments which place me on a high vantage-ground for the full establishment of our system.
Lord Jeffrey’s offering was not in homage to the Free Church, but because of the general merits of our cause, as associated with the enlightenment and moralization of the people. I called on him the other day. He is indeed a very amiable and engaging person, and one of the best specimens I know of the natural man, with great respect, too, for Christianity, even in its most serious and evangelical form. Heaven grant that it may ripen ere he dies into a personal and saving faith.* — With
* 24, Moray Place, Saturday Evening, 11th November 1847. — REVEREND ANI> DEAR SIB, — I entrusted my subscription entirely to the discretion of Dr. Chalmers, and cannot have the least objection to its now being disposed of as may seem best to the trustees who have been honoured by his confidence, and are following out his instructions.
I have been very much touched and gratified by what you are kind enough to most cordial and Christian regards to the Misses Lenox, ever believe me, my dear Sir, yours most affectionately and with greatest esteem, THOMAS CHALMERS.