Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 8.djvu/151

Rh theology, but with a heart so devoted to the abstractions of geometry, that divinity occupied little of his thoughts; even when it was afterwards admitted, it was more in the form of sentimental musings, than of patient laborious inquiry for the purposes of public instruction. But he had so successfully studied the principles of composition, and acquired such a mastery of language, that even at the age of sixteen, many of his college productions exhibited that rich and glowing eloquence which was to form his distinguished characteristic in after years. He had also acquired that occasional dreaminess of look and absence of manner which so often characterizes deep thinkers, and especially mathematicians; and of this he gave a curious illustration, when he had finished his seventh year at college, and was about to enter a family as private tutor. His father's household had repaired to the door, to bid him farewell; and after this was ended, Thomas mounted the horse that was to carry him to the Dundee ferry. But in accomplishing this feat, he put his right foot (the wrong one on this occasion) into the stirrup, and was in the saddle in a trice, with his face to the horse's tail! When ready to apply for license as a preacher, an obstacle was in his way; for as yet he had not completed his nineteenth year, while the rules of the Church required that no student should be licensed before he had reached the age of twenty-one. This difficulty, however, was overruled by an exceptional clause in favour of those possessing "rare and singular qualities;" and it having been represented by the member of presbytery who discovered this qualification in the old statute, that Thomas Chalmers was a "lad o' pregnant pairts," the young applicant, after the usual trials, was licensed as a preacher of the gospel, on the 31st of July, 1799.

On entering the sacred office, Chalmers was in no haste to preach; on the contrary, he refused the numerous demands that were made upon his clerical services, took up his abode in Edinburgh during the winter of 1799-1800, for the purpose of prosecuting his mathematical studies under Professor Playfair, and deprecated the idea of even a church presentation itself, lest it should prove an interruption to the progress of his beloved pursuits. The following winter he also spent in Edinburgh, almost exclusively occupied in the study of chemistry. As there was a prospect of the parish of Kilmany soon becoming vacant, which was in the gift of the United College of St. Andrews, and to which his nomination by the professors was certain, Chalmers might now have awaited in tranquillity that happy destination for life to which his studies hitherto had been ostensibly devoted. But science and scientific distinction were still the great objects of his ambition, and the mathematical assistantship of St. Andrews having become vacant, he presented himself as a candidate for the charge, in the hope that such an appointment would ultimately lead to the professorship, without obliging him to forego the ministerial charge of Kilmany—for St. Andrews was the head-quarters of ecclesiastical pluralities. In both objects he was successful; and having lectured and taught mathematics at college in the winter of 1802–3, on 12th May, 1803, he was inducted into his expected parish. The ardour with which he threw himself into his college prelections, and the unwonted eloquence with which he imbued a science so usually delivered in the form of dry detail and demonstration, constituted a novelty that astonished, while it delighted his pupils, and their earnest application and rapid proficiency fully corresponded with the efforts of their youthful teacher. At the close of the session, however, a bitter disappointment awaited him; he was told by his employer that his services as assistant teacher were no longer required, while