Part 14

Your mere genius, who has instincts, and is poetical and not scientific, who grows from within--he is like our mountain river, clear, wilful, odd; running round corners; disappearing it may be underground, coming up again quite unexpectedly and strong, as if fed from some unseen spring, deep down in darkness; rising in flood without warning, and coming down like a lion; often all but dry; never to be trusted to for driving mills; must at least be tamed and led off to the mill; and going down full pace, and without stop or stay, into the sea.

Your man of talent, of acquirements, of science--w'ho is made,--who is not so much educed as edified; who, instead of acquiring his _vires eundo_, gets his _vires eundi_, from acquirement, and grows from without; who serves his brethren and is useful; he rises often no one knows where or cares; has perhaps no proper fountain at all, but is the result of the gathered rain-water in the nigher flats; he is never quite clear, never brisk, never dangerous; always from the first useful, and goes pleasantly in harness; turns mills; washes rags--makes them into paper; carries down all manner of dye-stuffs and feculence; and turns a bread-mill to as good purpose as any clearer stream; is docile, and has, as he reaches the sea, in his dealings with the world, a river trust, who look after his and their own interests, and dredge him, and deepen him, and manage him, and turn him off into docks, and he is in the sea before he or you know it.

Though we do not reckon the imagination of Dr. Chalmers among his master faculties, it was powerful, effective, magnificent. It did not move him, he took it up as he went along; it was not that imperial, penetrating, transmuting function that we find it in Dante, in Jeremy Taylor, in Milton, or in Burke; he used it to emblazon his great central truths, to hang clouds of glory on the skirts of his illustration; but it was too passionate, too material, too encumbered with images, too involved in the general _mêlée_ of the soul, to do its work as a master. It was not in him, as Thomas Fuller calls it, "that inward sense of the soul, its most boundless and restless faculty; for while the understanding and the will are kept, as it were, liberâ custodiâ to their objects of vemm et bonum, it is free from all engagements--digs without spade, flies without wings, builds without charges, in a moment striding from the centre to the circumference of the world by a kind of omnipotency, creating and annihilating things in an instant--restless, ever working, never wearied." We may say, indeed, that men of his temperament are not generally endowed with this power in largest measure; in one sense they can do without it, in another they want the conditions on which its highest exercise depends. Plato and Milton, Shakspere and Dante and Wordsworth, had imaginations tranquil, sedate, cool, originative, penetrative, intense, which dwelt in the "highest heaven of invention." Hence it was that Chalmers could personify or paint a passion; he could give it in one of its actions; he could not, or rather he never did impassionate, create, and vivify a person--a very different thing from personifying a passion--all the difference, as Henry Taylor says, between Byron and Shakspere.

In his impetuosity, we find the rationale of much that is peculiar in the style of Dr. Chalmers. As a spoken style it was thoroughly effective. *

* We have not noticed his iterativeness, his reiterativeness, because it flowed naturally from his primary qualities. In speaking it was effective, and to us pleasing, because there was some new modulation, some addition in the manner, just as the sea never sets up one wave exactly like the last or the next. But in his books it did somewhere encumber his thoughts, and the reader's progress and profit. It did not arise, as in many lesser men, from his having said his say--from his having no more in him; much less did it arise from conceit, either of his idea or of his way of stating it; but from the intensity with which the sensation of the idea-if we may use the expression--made its first mark on his mind. Truth to him never seemed to lose its first freshness, its edge, its flavour; and Divine truth, we know, had come to him so suddenly, so fully, at mid-day, when he was in the very prime of his knowledge and his power and quickness--had so possessed his entire nature, as if, like him who was journeying to Damascus, a Great Light had shone round about him--that whenever he reproduced that condition, he began afresh, and with his whole utterance, to proclaim it. He could not but speak the things he had seen and felt, and heard and believed; and he did it much in the same way, and in the same words, for the thoughts and affections and posture of his soul were the same. Like all men of vivid perception and keen sensibility, his mind and his body continued under impressions, both material and spiritual, after the objects were gone. A curious instance of this occurs to us. Some years ago, he roamed up and down through the woods near Auchindinny, with two boys as companions. It was the first bur& of summer, and the trees were mere than usually enriched with leaves. He wandered about delighted, silent, looking at the leaves, "thick and numberless." As the three went on, they came suddenly upon a high brick wall, newly built, for peach trees, not yet çlanted. Dr. Chalmers halted, and looking steadfastly at the wall, exclaimed most earnestly, "WTiat foliage! what foliage!" The boys looked at one another, and said nothing, but on getting home, expressed their astonishment at this Very puzzling phenomenon. What a difference! leaves and parallelograms; a forest and a brick wall!

He seized the nearest weapons, and smote down whatever he hit. But from this very vehemence, this haste, there was in his general style a want of correctness, of selectness, of nicety, of that curious felicity which makes thought immortal, and enshrines it in imperishable crystal. In the language of the affections he was singularly happy; but in a formal statement, rapid argumentation and analysis, he was often as we might think, uncouth, imperfect, and incorrect: chiefly owing to his temperament, to his fiery, impatient, swelling spirit, this gave his orations their fine audacity--this brought out hot from the furnace, his new words--this made his numbers run wild--lege solutis. We are sure this view will be found confirmed by these "Daily Readings," when he wrote little, and had not time to get heated, and when the nature of the work, the hour at which it was done, and his solitariness, made his thoughts flow at their "own sweet will they are often quite as classical in expression, as they are deep and lucid in thought--reflecting heaven with its clouds and stars, and letting us see deep down into its own secret depths: this is to us one great charm of these volumes. Here he is broad and calm; in his great public performances by mouth and pen, he soon passed from the lucid into the luminous.

What, for instance, can be finer in expression than this? "It is well to be conversant with great elements--life and death, reason and madness."

"God forgets not his own purposes, though he executes them in his own way, and maintains his own pace, which he hastens not and shortens not to meet our impatience."

"I find it easier to apprehend the greatness of the Deity than any of his moral perfections, or his sacredness;" and this--

"One cannot but feel an interest in Ishmael--figuring him to be a noble of nature--one of those heroes of the wilderness who lived on the produce of his bow, and whose spirit was nursed and exercised among the wild adventures of the life that he led. And it does soften our conception of him whose hand was against every man, and every man's hand against him, when we read of his mother's influence over him, in the deference of Ishmael to whom we read another example of the respect yielded to females even in that so-called barbarous period of the world. There was a civilisation, the immediate effect of religion in these days, from which men fell away as the world grew older."

That he had a keen relish for material and moral beauty and grandeur we all know; what follows shows that he had also the true ear for beautiful words, as at once pleasant to the ear and suggestive of some higher feelings: "I have often felt, in reading Milton and Thomson, a strong poetical effect in the bare enumeration of different countries, and this strongly enhanced by the statement of some common and prevailing emotion, which passed from one to another." This is set forth with great beauty and power in verses 14th and 15th of Exodus xv.,--"The people shall hear and be afraid--sorrow shall take hold on the inhabitants of Palestina. Then the dukes of Edom shall be amazed--the mighty men of Moab, trembling shall take hold of them--the inhabitants of Canaan shall melt away." Any one who has a tolerable ear and any sensibility, must remember the sensation of delight in the mere sound--like the colours of a butterfly's wing, or the shapeless glories of evening clouds, to the eye--in reading aloud such passages as these: "Heshbon shall cry and Elealeh: their voice shall be heard to Jahaz: for by the way of Luhith with weeping shall they go it up; for in the way of Horonaim they shall raise a cry.--God came from Teman, the Holy One from Mount Paran.--Is not Calno as Carchemish? is not Hamath as Arpad? is not Samaria as Damascus?--He is come to Aiath, he is passed to Migron; at Michmash he hath laid up his carriages: Ramah is afraid; Gibeah of Saul is fled. Lift up thy voice, O daughter of Gallim: cause it to be heard unto Laish, O poor Anathoth! Mad-menah is removed; the inhabitants of Gebim gather themselves to flee.--The fields of Heshbon languish, the vine of Sibmah; I will water thee with my tears, O Heshbon and Elealeh." Any one may prove to himself that much of the effect and beauty of these passages depends on these names; put others in their room, and try them.

We remember well our first hearing Dr. Chalmers. We were in a moorland district inTweeddale, rejoicing in the country, after nine months of the High School. We heard that the famous preacher was to be at a neighbouring parish church, and off we set, a cartful of irrepressible youngsters. "Calm was all nature as a resting wheel." The crows, instead of making wing, were impudent and sat still; the cart-horses were standing, knowing the day, at the fieklgates, gossiping and gazing, idle and happy; the moor was stretching away in the pale sunlight--vast, dim, melancholy, like a sea; everywhere were to be seen the gathering people, "sprinklings of blithe company the country-side seemed moving to one centre. As we entered the kirk we saw a notorious character, a drover, who had much of the brutal look of what he worked in, with the knowing eve of a man of the city, a sort of big Peter Bell.

"He had a hardness in his eye,

He had a hardness in his cheek."

He was our terror, and we not only wondered, but were afraid when we saw him going in. The kirk was full as it could hold. How different in looks to a brisk town congregation! There was a fine leisureliness and vague stare; all the dignity and vacancy of animals; eyebrows raised and mouths open, as is the habit with those who speak little and look much, and at far-off objects. The minister comes in, homely in his dress and gait, but having a great look about him, like a mountain among hills. The High School boys thought him like a "big one of ourselves," he looks vaguely round upon his audience, as if he saw in it one great object, not many. We shall never forget his smile! its general benignity;--how he let the light of his countenance fall on us! He read a few verses quietly; then prayed briefly, solemnly, with his eyes wide open all the time, but not seeing. Then he gave out his text; we forget it, but its subject was, "Death reigns." He stated slowly, calmly, the simple meaning of the words; what death was, and how and why it reigned; then suddenly he started, and looked like a man who had seen some great sight, and was breathless to declare it; he told us how death reigned--everywhere, at all times, in all places, how we all knew it, how we would yet know more of it. The drover, who had sat down in the table-seat opposite, was gazing up in a state of stupid excitement; he seemed restless, but never kept his eye from the speaker. The tide set in--everything added to its power, deep called to deep, imagery and illustration poured in; and every now and then the theme,--the simple, terrible statement, was repeated in some lucid interval. After overwhelming us with proofs of the reign of Death, and transferring to us his intense urgency and emotion; and after shrieking, as if in despair, these words, "Death is a tremendous necessity,"--he suddenly looked beyond us as if into some distant region, and cried out, "Behold a mightier!--who is this? He cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah, glorious in his apparel, speaking in righteousness, travelling in the greatness of his strength, mighty to save." Then, in a few plain sentences, he stated the truth as to sin entering, and death by sin, and death passing upon all. Then he took fire once more, and enforced, with redoubled energy and richness, the freeness, the simplicity, the security, the sufficiency of the great method of justification. How astonished and impressed we all were! He was at the full thunder of his power; the whole man was in an agony of earnestness. The drover was weeping like a child, the tears running down his ruddy, coarse cheeks--his face opened out and smoothed like an infant's; his whole body stirred with emotion. We all had insensibly been drawn out of our seats, and were converging towards the wonderful speaker. And when he sat down, after warning each one of us to remember who it was, and what it was, that followed death on his pale horse, * and how alone we could escape--we all sunk back into our seats. How beautiful to our eyes did the thunderer look-- exhausted--but sweet and pure! How he poured out his soul before his God in giving thanks for sending the Abolisher of Death! Then a short psalm, and all was ended.

* "And I looked, and behold a pale horse; and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him."--Rev. vi, 8,

We went home quieter than we came; we did not recount the foals with their long legs, and roguish eyes, and their sedate mothers; we did not speculate whose dog that was, and whether that was a crow or a man in the dim moor,--we thought of other things. That voice, that face; those great, simple, living thoughts; those floods of resistless eloquence; that piercing, shattering voice,--that "tremendous necessity."

Were we desirous of giving to one who had never seen or heard Dr. Chalmers an idea of what manner of man he was--what he was as a whole, in the full round of his notions, tastes, affections, and powers, we would put this book into their hands, and ask them to read it slowly, bit by bit, as he wrote it. In it he puts down simply, and at once, what passes through his mind as he reads; there is no making of himself feel and think--no getting into a frame of mind; he was not given to frames of mind; he preferred states to forms--substances to circumstances. There is something of everything in it--his relish for abstract thought--his love of taking soundings in deep places and finding no bottom--his knack of starting subtle questions, which he did not care to run to earth--his penetrating, regulating godliness--his delight in nature--his turn for politics, general, economical, and ecclesiastical--his picturesque eye--his humanity--his courtesy--his warm-heartedness--his impetuosity--his sympathy--with all the wants, pleasures, and sorrows of his kind--his delight in the law of God, and his simple, devout, manly treatment of it--his acknowledgment of difficulties--his turn for the sciences of quantity and number, and indeed for natural science and art generally--his shrewdness--his worldly wisdom--his genius; all these come out--you gather them like fruit, here a little, and there a little. He goes over the Bible, not as a philosopher, or a theologian, or a historian, or a geologist, or a jurist, or a naturalist, or a statist, or a politician--picking out all that he wants, and a great deal more than he has any business with, and leaving everything else as barren to his reader as it has been to himself; but he looks abroad upon his Father's word--as he used so pleasantly to do on his world--as a man, and as a Christian; he submits himself to its influences, and lets his mind go out fully and naturally in its utterances. It is this which gives to this work all the charm of multitude in unity, of variety in harmony; and that sort of unexpectedness and ease of movement which we see everywhere in nature and in natural men.

Our readers will find in these delightful Bible Readings not a museum of antiquities, and curiosities, and laborious trifles; nor of scientific specimens, analysed to the last degree, all standing in order, labelled and useless. They will not find in it an armoury of weapons for fighting with and destroying their neighbours. They will get less of the physic of controversy than of the diet of holy living. They will find much of what Lord Bacon desired, when he said, "We want short, sound, and judicious notes upon Scripture, without running into commonplaces, pursuing controversies, or reducing those notes to artificial method, but leaving them quite loose and native. For certainly, as those wines which flow from the first treading of the grape are sweeter and better than those forced out by the press, which gives them the roughness of the husk and the stone, so are those doctrines best and sweetest which flow from a gentle crush of the Scriptures, and are not rung into controversies and commonplaces." They will find it as a large pleasant garden; no great system; not trim, but beautiful, and in which there are things pleasant to the eye as well as good for food--flowers and fruits, and a few good esculent, wholesome roots. There are Honesty, Thrift, Eye-bright (Euphrasy that cleanses the sight\ Heart's-ease. The good seed in abundance, and the strange mystical Passion-flower; and in the midst, and seen everywhere, if we but look for it, the Tree of Life, with its twelve manner of fruits--the very leaves of which are for the healing- of the nations. And perchance, when they take their walk through it at evening-time, or at "the sweet hour of prime," they may see a happy, wise, beaming old man at his work there--they may hear his well-known voice; and if they have their spiritual senses exercised as they ought, they will not fail to see by his side "one like unto the Son of Man."

$DR. GEORGE WILSON.

|Among the many students at our University who some two-and-twenty years ago started on the great race, in the full flush of youth and health, and with that strong hunger for knowledge which only the young, or those who keep themselves so, ever know, there were three lads--Edward Forbes, Samuel Brown, and George Wilson--who soon moved on to the front and took the lead. They are now all three in their graves.

No three minds could well have been more diverse in constitution or bias; each was typical of a generic difference from the others. What they cordially agreed in, was their hunting in the same field and for the same game. The truth about this visible world, and all that it contains, was their quarry. This one thing they set themselves to do, but each had his own special gift, and took his own road--each had his own special choice of instruments and means. Any one man combining their essential powers, would have been the epitome of a natural philosopher, in the wide sense of the man who would master the philosophy of nature.

Edward Forbes, who bulks largest at present, and deservedly, for largeness was of his essence, was the observer proper. He saw everything under the broad and searching light of day, white and uncoloured, and with an unimpassioned eye. What he was after were the real appearances of things; phenomena as such; all that seems to be. His was the search after what is, over the great field of the world. He was in the best sense a natural historian, an observer and recorder of what is seen and of what goes on, and not less of what has been seen and what has gone on, in this wonderful historic earth of ours, with all its fulness. He was keen, exact, capacious,--tranquil and steady in his gaze as nature herself. He was, thus far, kindred to Aristotle, to Pliny, Linnaeus, Cuvier, and Humboldt, though the great German, and the greater Stagirite, had higher and deeper spiritual insights than Edward Forbes ever gave signs of. It is worth remembering that Dr. George Wilson was up to his death engaged in preparing his Memoir and Remains for the press. Who will now take up the tale?

Samuel Brown was, so to speak, at the opposite pole--rapid, impatient, fearless, full of passion and imaginative power--desiring to divine the essences rather than the appearances of things--in search of the what chiefly in order to question it, make it give up at whatever cost the secret of its why; his fiery, projective, subtle spirit, could not linger in the outer fields of mere observation, though he had a quite rare faculty for seeing as well as for looking, which latter act, however, he greatly preferred; but he pushed into the heart and inner life of every question, eager to evoke from it the very secret of itself. Forbes, as we have said, wandered at will, and with a settled purpose and a fine hunting scent, at his leisure, and free and almost indifferent, over the ample fields--happy and joyous and full of work--unencumbered with theory 01* with wings, for he cared not to fly. Samuel Brown, whose wings were perhaps sometimes too much for him, more ambitious, more of a solitary turn, was for ever climbing the Mount Sinais and Pisgahs of science, to speak of Him whose haunt they were,--climbing there all alone and in the dark, and with much peril, if haply he might descry the break of day and the promised land; or, to vary the figure, diving into deep and not undangerous wells, that he might the better see the stars at noon, and possibly find Her who is said to lurk there. He had more of Plato, though he wanted the symmetry and persistent grandeur of the son of Ariston. He was perhaps liker his own favourite Kepler; such a man in a word as we have not seen since Sir Humphry Davy, whom in many things he curiously resembled, and not the least in this that the prose of each was more poetical than the verse.