CHAPTER XVII.

SEVEN LIVES SAVED BY MR. HONEY-HIS FUNERAL SERMON AT BENDOCHY-DEPUTATION FROM GLASGOW-THE CANVASS-DR. JONES' LETTER-THE ELECTION-FAREWELL SERMON AT KILMANY.

ONE fearful winter day the intelligence circulated through St. Andrews that a vessel had been driven upon a sandbank in the bay to the eastward of the town. A crowd of sailors, citizens, and students, soon collected upon the beach; for the vessel had been cast ashore but a few hundred yards from the houses, and she lay so near, that though the heavy air was darkened by the driving sleet, they could see at intervals the figures of the crew clinging to rope or spar ere each breaker burst upon her side, and shrouded all in surfy mist and darkness. In a calm sea a few vigorous strokes would have carried a good swimmer to the vessel's side; but now the hardiest fishermen drew back, and dared not face the fearful surge. At last a student of divinity volunteered. Tying a rope round his waist and struggling through the surf, he threw himself among the waves. Forcing his slow way through the raging element, he was nearing the vessel's side, when his friends on shore, alarmed at the length of time and slow rate of recent progress, began to pull him back. Seizing a knife which he carried between his teeth, he cut this rope away, and reaching at last the stranded sloop, drew a fresh one from her to the shore but hungry, weak, and wearied, after four days' foodless tossing through the tempest, not one of the crew had strength

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or courage left to use it. He again rushed into the waves; he boarded the vessel, he took them man by man, and bore them to the land. Six men were rescued thus. His seventh charge was a boy, so helpless that twice was the hold let go, and twice he had to dive after him into the deep. Meanwhile, in breathless stillness the crowd had watched each perilous passage, till the double figure was seen tossing landward through the spray. But when the deed was done, and the whole crew saved, a loud cheer of admiring triumph rose around the gallant youth.

This chivalrous action was performed by Mr. John Honey, one of Mr. Chalmers' early and cherished college friends, afterwards ordained as minister of Bendochy, in Perthshire. Though his great strength and spirit bore him apparently untired through the efforts of that exhausting day, there was reason to believe that in saving the life of others he had sacrificed his own. The seeds of a deceitful malady were sown which afterwards proved fatal. Mr. Chalmers was asked, and consented to preach his funeral sermon on the 30th of October 1814, the Sabbath after his funeral. It was a brilliant autumn day. The number being too great to be accommodated in the church, one of its windows had been taken out, and a few boards thrown across the sill to form a platform, from which the preacher, while standing but a yard or two from Mr. Honey's grave, might be heard both by those within the building and those seated on the scattered tombstones of the churchyard. A hum in the crowd, (I now speak on the authority and almost in the words of an eye-witness,) and a melancholy tolling of the bell, announced the approach of the preacher, who seated himself for a minute or two in an old elbow-chair, took the psalm-book from a little table before him, turned hastily over a few of the leaves, and then rose in the most awkward and even helpless manner. Before he read the lines which were to be sung, his large and apparently

leaden eyes were turned towards the recent grave, with a look wildly pathetic, fraught with intense and indescribable passion. The psalm was read with no very promising elocution; and while the whole mass of the people were singing it, he sunk into the chair, turned seemingly into a monumental statue of the coldest stone, so deadly pale was his large broad face and forehead. The text was read: Deut. xxxii. 29,-" O that they were wise; that they understood this; that they would consider their latter end!" The doctrinal truth which he meant to inculcate being established on a basis of reasoning so firm that doubt could not move or sophistry shake it, he bounded at once upon the structure which he had reared; and by that inborn and unteachable power of the spirit, which nature has reserved for the chosen of her sons, and which shakes off all the disadvantages and encumbrances of figure and voice and language as easily as the steed shakes the thistle-down from his side, carried the hearts and the passions of all who heard him with irresistible and even tremendous sway. "It strikes me," said the preacher-and as the words were spoken there was a silence among the living almost as deep as that which reigned among the dead who lay beneath-"It strikes me as the most impressive of all sentiments, that it will be all the same a hundred years after this. It is often uttered in the form of a proverb, and with the levity of a mind that is not aware of its importance. A hundred years after this! Good heavens! with what speed and with what certainty will those hundred years come to their termination. This day will draw to a close, and a number of days makes up one revolution of the seasons. Year follows year, and a number of years makes up a century. These little intervals of time accumulate and fill up that mighty space which appears to the fancy so big and so immeasurable. The hundred years will come, and they will see out the wreck of whole generations. Every living thing that now moves on

the face of the earth will disappear from it. The infant that now hangs on his mother's bosom will only live in the remembrance of his grandchildren. The scene of life and of intelligence that is now before me will be changed into the dark and loathsome forms of corruption. The people who now hear me will cease to be spoken of; their memory will perish from the face of the country; their flesh will be devoured with worms; the dark and creeping things that live in the holes of the earth will feed upon their bodies; their coffins will have mouldered away, and their bones be thrown up in the newmade grave. And is this the consummation of all things? Is this the final end and issue of man? Is this the upshot of his busy history? Is there nothing beyond time and the grave to alleviate the gloomy picture, to chase away these dismal images? Must we sleep for ever in the dust, and bid an eternal adieu to the light of heaven?"*

"I have seen," adds our informant, "many scenes, and I have heard many eloquent men, but this I have never seen equalled, or even imitated. It was not learning, it was not art --it was the untaught and the unencumbered incantation of genius, the mightiest engine of which the world can boast."

One group of auditors, Mr. Robert Tennent, jun., and four other Glasgow citizens, took a peculiar interest in the services of this Sabbath day. They came to Bendochy, as members of the Town-Council of Glasgow, to hear Mr. Chalmers as one who had been named as a candidate for the Tron Church in that city, vacant at this time in consequence of its former minister, Dr. Macgill, having been appointed to the Chair of Theology. The canvass for this vacancy was at this time at its height, and a singular and unprecedented interest had been attached to it. Early in September Mr. John Tennent had written to his friend, Mr. David Pitcairn of Leith::- "As I know you are a lover

* Posthumous Works, vol. vi. pp. 83.

of the truth, and wish its influence extended among your fellow-creatures, I have to request that you will aid in a plan which my friends and I have formed of bringing Mr. Chalmers of Kilmany to Glasgow. What I wish is, that you would get Mr. Bonar to write a strong letter to Mr. More in favour of Mr. Chalmers, stating what his character is, which has been much abused, and also requesting him to use his influence among his brother councillors to recommend him to the vacancy. *** Write us as soon as you have done anything, and have laid the matter before your father and friends. *** The cry to-day is that Chalmers is mad!"* Mr. Pitcairn's father wrote instantly himself to Mr. More. "I have shown your father's letter," Mr. Tennent replied, "to several of our leading people, who are very much satisfied with it. Were a similar letter sent from Dr. Jones and Dr. Fleming, it would be useful. It would be desirable that Mr. Chalmers should preach some day soon for Dr. Balfour, which might be managed by their exchanging pulpits. I hope that your father or you will write me soon what Mr. Chalmers' own sentiments are as to coming here." Dr. Balfour, who at this time was on a visit to a family in the neighbourhood of St. Andrews, had gone to Kilmany to hear Mr. Chalmers preach, and having made his acquaintance, had already written to Mr. Parker, an influential member of the Town-Council:-"I am told, too, that Mr. Chalmers of Kilmany is talked of. I would not presume to give my opinion were he not more a stranger than the rest, and, as I am informed, spoken against by many. I never saw nor heard him till I came here, but report made him great and good. I went therefore to his parish-church with very high expectations indeed. They were not disappointed: his talents are of the first order, and now distinguished grace adorns them. He has long been known as a celebrated philo* For an interesting illustrative anecdote, see Appendix N.