MORNING WALK WITH CHALMERS.

87

foot" bus" being, in all the British world, the regular abbreviation for omnibus; for " cab," the common word in Edinburgh seems to be "minibus;" a carry-all is called " a van."

This last word I shall use presently, and with em

phatic memory.

Dr. Chalmers insisted on walking with our party some distance; and we submitted most cordially. That walk, and the talk that beguiled its progress, were very delightful and worthy of our memory. My daughter had the honor of his arm, and the doctor was full of innocent glee and witty sayings, as he led us circuitously about, explained the scenery, the localities of nature and of art, expansive around us, as we traveled, traversed the circumference of prospect, and listened to his kind observations, full of sparkling good humor and genial coruscations of wit.

1. There seems, doctor, a neat new edifice yonder, built by your free allies, I think. Where is the old hive whence the swarm emigrated? It is one of your new and free edifices, I think.

2. There it is do you see? Well, truly, when the residuaries were all alone, with themselves and their fealty, they were sadly run for a preacher to a place, through all Scotland. They called forth every clerk unknown to fame and unwonted to the duties of the kirk, and metamorphosed him into a first-rate preacher, as if by a sort of queen's magic that they have, and they intruded him, "by authority," into all the vacant stalls of their afflicted jurisdiction. So to that old one they ordered a man whom the people thought to be no man at all; and with much of the spirit of John Knox, or, rather, I hope, of his master in them, they one and all, to the precentor and the beadle of the parish, resolved to give a wide berth to the Presbytery's intruder, whom they would not honor or receive as their spiritual teacher—no, not for an hour. So they performed a total exodus on the occasion, and left him plenty of naked walls, and vacant pews, and

88

THE PRESBYTERY'S INTRUDER.

empty benches for the probation of his zeal and the recrea tion of his voice, that day. Not one of them remained—their house was left to them quite desolate, I assure you. The people were intelligent, and they were unanimous, too—now they occupy that new edifice, happy and prosperous there. But such revolutions of the sort! It is quite a transformation, social and ecclesiastical, in the whole country of the North.

1. Yes; you are Americanizing here very fast! Success to the process, doctor. You see and feel now some of the productive virtues of the voluntary principle, the voluntary system, in contrast with the loving patronage of your quondam host, Cæsar-we welcome and honor you as all dissenters de facto.

2. But the intruder; I had almost forgot the faithful paragon of wit, and strategy, and courage that he showed himself. Getting some wind of the movement and the consequent vacancy that was expecting his intrusion, he obtained a capacious old van, and one horse to draw it, and put aboard of it as many of his own family and friends as it could contain, and so he traveled to the empty edifice with difficulty for the poor quadruped was sorely worked and pestered with his burden. The vis inertia of matter was laboriously against him, as he impelled it; and the wheels got no blessing from the people as they rolled on their axles past their doors; and the patient beast groaned as he moved, fatigued and dispirited, with so great a load of Erastianism, as he never encountered before, in all his laborious and propulsive experience; till at length he reached the place-after a long, and a rough, and a heavy operation, that morning. Well, now, leaving the horse for the man-he took possession with his company, and not another person was there. But he-brave soldier! preached courageously, as he was bid. The whole congregation listened to him, as became them, all mightily convinced, if not converted; his eloquence was quite

FACETIOUS, NOT COARSE OR CROSS.

89

extraordinary-and his oratory, nervous and impassioned to a wonder; he outdid himself; he was plainly the greatest man in the house, if not in the country; and for the first time in his life he gave universal satisfaction to his hearers-he actually carried, for once, his whole audience along with him! And that was preaching, as the echoes of emptiness resounded to the voice of the preacher, ore rotundo, declaiming to them, where a close-packed multitude of Christian people, and their children with them, used to convene, and listen to his word, as the beloved of the Lord.

In all this, however, I must aver, there was no malignity. It is difficult to relate it, without some resulting injury. Chalmers was in the happy and unbent mood of kindness-in the vein of cheerful confidence, as recreating with his friends. His words and thoughts, prompted by the moving scenery around him, flowed at once extemporaneous and clever, with no apprehension of

A chiel's amang you taking notes,

And, faith, he'll prent it.

It was, indeed, an amiableness of display, the more worthy as utterly inartificial and spontaneous. He seemed not to know that he was great, or celebrated, or admired by those around him, and by all Christendom. It was an elegant exemplification of the idea of Horace, with nothing low, or improper, or unkind in it—Dulce est in loco desipere.

'Tis pleasure, and no damage to the wise,

Sometimes to leave the problem and the prize,

Body and mind, in chase of butterflies.

And the same great poet expresses a similar sentiment in another place-if I recollect it right.

Non semper arcum tendit Apollo:

The god of eloquence, and all the arts,
Not always bends his bow or throws his darts.

90

NOCTURNAL WALK FROM MORNINGSIDE.

Elastic more, his bow unstrung is found,
His mind at rest becomes the more profound.
All nature sleeps more vigorous to awake,

Nor wisdom shines less brilliant for its sake.

It was now that the doctor made another private assignation with me, as he had more questions to put in relation to things in America. At the designated time, "punctual as lovers to the moment sworn," I came alone to Morningside in the early evening. It was clear and beautiful. The summer solstice was in its wane; yet both the air was balmy, and the solar light, as if reluctant to part with the rich scenery that its presence there evokes and decorates in the warm season, kept, in that high latitude, the twilight deceitfully prolonged. At eleven o'clock, or near twelve, when I walked back to Edinburgh, enjoying the solitude and the scenery, it was lucent and pleasant-as if the firmament and the atmosphere had conspired to beguile me, with the consciousness that it was only half an hour after sundown. It was the regular nocturnal AURORA BOREALIS of Scotland. The sun seemed only to dip for an hour beneath the northern pole, while his attendant radiations and refractions left the very night with pledges of returning day, and the rich crepuscular glories of the sky seemed to contradict the dial-plate of our watches, in answering the question, What is the hour? The north-star, that bright and faithful friend of many a lonely traveler, shone mild, and clear, and beautiful, and almost vertical-so high, it seemed not the same I had greeted and loved from my youth, in America, full fifteen degrees lower there; here more central and thronal, in the illuminated dome of the nocturnal heavens.

We were soon together in his study, and his questions and my answers were in animated progress. Our topics were the divines of America, living and dead; the state of religion and education there; and especially the late rupture, nine years before, in the Presbyterian Church; not without some com

DIVINES OF AMERICA.

91

parisons between their disruption, then of three years' continuance, and ours; the analogies and the differences, and their common influences on the general cause of apostolical religion throughout the world. As Presbyterians in common, sincerely we loved our doctrine and our polity; as generically identified with genuine Christianity, and as contradistinguished from all the forms of the paganizing virus of churchism—a proud, usurping monopoly, and like the hostile misanthropy of the autocratic Arabs, in any or in all countries. But I must here make selections, inserting some and omitting other things, with due discretion and regard to utility.

In reference to our great theologians, he made many quite hearty inquiries—especially Griffin* and Stuart among the living, Dwight and Edwards among the dead. He praised these all for appropriate excellences; but of Edwards he loved to speak as our Great Man of the Church. The strength and sagacity of his mind, and his great power as a patient and elaborate reasoner, though dry and abstract in the main, received his recognition and his commendation.

2. I read him with equal admiration and fatigue. Sometimes I feel strait-laced in his philosophy, convinced and full of it, and yet pinioned and embarrassed by it in the pulpit. I can not preach with it, and I can not preach it; so I had rather forget all his clear and deep metaphysics, read my Bible, be full of what it says, and then preach with all the fullness and the freedom it inspires. The Bible is full of freedom and glory.

1. Probably I know by experience exactly what you mean!

* I here perpetrate, confessedly, an innocent anachronism, by inserting several things that occurred in 1833 as if they happened in 1846. This is now convenient, and no evil is involved in it. Dr. Griffin, however, was not alive in 1846, having died eight or nine years before. His gigantic thought and teeming eloquence received the testimony of Chalmers. He said to me, quite energetically, "And who ez that Graffun? I should like to hare aboot em."