D. MAITLAND MAKGILL CRICHTON, ESQ. 395

behalf of the Church's spiritual liberties, which have now been scattered to the winds. I would have been a renegade to my own principles had I remained in an established church; and the only way of fulfilling them was to come out from among them.

Let me farther add, that the Free Church of Scotland is probably doing more at this moment for the establishment principle than any other church or community of Christians in the world. We have gone out on the establishment principle, and are so giving that principle all the weight of a disinterested testimony; and are at this moment, I believe, giving, in consequence, the utmost disappointment and offense to many of the voluntaries. Had we remained in and swallowed all the humiliations which the civil power have laid and are still laying on the skeleton Establishment of Scotland, the principle of Establishments would have been thoroughly brought into utter scorn and contempt, and the triumph of voluntaryism would have been complete. I am, my dear sir, yours truly, THOMAS CHALMERS.

No. CCCXIX.-To D. M. M. CRICHTON, ESQ

BURNTISLAND, 16th. August, 1841. MY VERY DEAR SIR-I mean to be at home all this week, with the exception of Friday, and also to be at home on Monday next week. If God will, I shall be in Edinburgh on Tuesday and Wednesday.

It delights me to observe that things are fast approaching to that state in which there will be no room for the slightest shade of a difference between us. I long to see you, and talk with you on a subject upon which our friends are not particularly ripe-I mean the future economics of our Church, should the Legislature be so infatuated as to force on a disruption from the Establishment.

The man who was thought a Utopian when he, seven years ago, predicted £10,000 a year for church extension,

and afterward realized £50,000 a year, has some claim to have his views considered, when he now, with far greater confidence, predicts, with the blessing of God, £100,000 a year for church independence, and as much more as will superadd the building of churches to a secure maintenance for one and all of our Non-Erastian clergymen.

It were well if you could let me know when I might have the pleasure of seeing you. I ever am, my dear sir, yours with the most cordial regard and esteem,

THOMAS CHALMERS.

No. CCCXX.-To D. M. M. CRICHTON, Esq.

EDINBURGH, 18th February, 1842. MY VERY DEAR SIR-I owe you many apologies for having delayed so long my reply to your letter of the 2d.

Go on and prosper, my dear sir, and may God abundantly reward your labors of love. Let me again reiterate what I have often said, had we twenty laborers like you there would be enough of instrumentality at least for arousing Scotland. With best wishes for you and yours, I ever am, my dear sir, yours most gratefully and truly, THOMAS CHALMERS.

No. CCCXXI.-TO GEORGE YULE, ESQ.

MORNINGSIDE, 9th June, 1843. DEAR SIR—I am at present so much engrossed that I have not had time to reply sooner than now to your letter of the 2d of this month.

For more than twenty-five years now I have studiously avoided the habit of attending public meetings as encroachments on my strength and time which I could not well bear; and nothing but the exigencies of our Church could have led me to take that part in them which I have recently done.

And now, with my decaying vigor and my increasing engagements, I am in far less favorable circumstances than ever for sharing in a work which I must forthwith leave in the hands of younger and abler men.

There is one strong temptation, however, to attend one or other of the meetings which you propose. I should like for once to dissipate the groundless misunderstandings which still linger, I fear, in the minds of the evangelical Dissenters, as if there were ever the slightest reluctance either on my part, or on the part of those who think along with me, to cooperate with them in all good works. But there are two reasons which oblige me to resist even this inducement, however powerfully it operates on my own taste and inclinations:

1. The present state of my engagements, along with a sense of utter exhaustion, from which I do not hope to recover for some weeks, would disable me from doing full justice to my views.

2. An opportunity will occur in the month of July, at the bicentenary celebration then to be held of the Westminster Assembly, and which, I trust, will be attended by the ministers and members of all evangelical denominations. I hope, in particular, that Dr. Wardlaw will return good for evil, and though I do not meet with him now, will give us the benefit of his presence on that occasion.

I am going to use a great liberty both with him and with Dr. Winter Hamilton. Will you have the goodness to say to them how kind I should take it if they, and any other members of the deputation, would honor me so far as breakfast with me any morning during their stay in Edinburgh. I am, dear sir, yours truly, THOMAS CHALMERS.

No. CCCXXII.-TO CAPTAIN BURNETT, OF MONBODDO. BANCHORY HOUSE, 10th September, 1843.' MY DEAR SIR-The umbrella came safe to hand. There is another small matter which I have forgotten, Mr. B.'s account for shoe-mending. I am quite ashamed that you should have such trouble about these bagatelles; and yet things small in material amount may be great in principle. "He who is unfaithful in the least is unfaithful also in much." But what most impels me to write at present is to assure

you of the delight which your letter has given me. You do me no more than justice when you suppose that I was greatly moved and affected at the time of our separation. I can truly say that no place and no people have taken so strong a hold both of my memory and my heart as your own Monboddo, to which I shall ever look back as I would to a much-loved home, where for the whole of a happy but short-lived week I felt myself domesticated in the midst of beauty and quietness, and, above all, of kind affection-these most soothing appliances to the mind of one who longs for retirement from the bustle and the agitations of public life. But I must not forget what some one of our poets says of the transition from loving much to loving wrong; nor so fasten my regards on your dear earthly paradise, as to withdraw me from the calls of duty, or the needful preparations for that home in the heavens, where sorrow and suffering, and best of all, where sin is unknown, and where, loving each other with pure hearts fervently, we shall be enabled to serve God without frailty, and without a flaw.

I have just come from a most extraordinary scene. I had given Mr. Thomson the hope that I might preach at his tent in Banchory. He chose to placard this over all Aberdeen ; and there assembled about six or seven thousand people. He got the pulpit carried from the tent to his own front entry, and I have preached the identical sermon to them that I did at Auchinblae, to six or seven thousand people assembled upon his lawn. I have been forcibly reminded of the last delicious Sabbath in your place, and which I so exceedingly enjoyed after the service was over, from the time that Mrs. Burnett received me into her carriage, and throughout the whole of that evening, when I was so much regaled, both by my own solitary walks around your house, and at the return of all its much-valued inmates, to each of whom individually, I beg again to offer my most affectionate regards. Ever believe me, my very dear sir, yours with the greatest respect and regard, THOMAS CHALMERS.

P.S.-There is nothing which has afflicted me so much for a long time as the description you give, both of your own feelings and those of Mrs. Burnett at the time of our separation. Before you receive this I shall have passed the Mill Inn in the mail for Montrose, and will look to its door with an enhanced interest. Let me entreat a place in yours and Mrs. Burnett's prayers, that Jesus Christ may be the Lord my strength to guide and guard amid the fascinations and trials of an evil world. May Heaven's best blessings rest upon you both. T. C.

No. CCCXXIII.-TO CAPTAIN BURNETT, OF MONBODDO. EDINBURGH, 23d March, 1847.

MY DEAR SIR-There is a most entire accordance of principle between us in all that you say throughout your last most interesting letter. Drunkenness is the great master-evil in our land. There is a variety started lately in regard to temperance associations, which, I think, will take well with many who recoil somewhat from the present constitution of them. An association has been recently formed by the Rev. Mr. Reid here, an eloquent and zealous teetotaller, named a Total Abstinence Association, on religious principles, and without the pledge. It hits my view better than did the former system, and I am now endeavoring to make a conscience of conforming to the object of such a society, and hope to do it better than, I fear, I could have done under the yoke of a written engagement. Give my kindest regards, &c., &c., THOMAS CHALMERS.

No. CCCXXIV.-TO THE REV. P. HENDERSON, POLLOCK

SHAWS.

EDINBURGH, 13th December, 1845. MY DEAR SIR-There is no express law of the Free Church that such congregations only as are either aid-giving or selfsupporting should supplement the stipend of their minister. Such a maxim might be either a sentiment or a principle,