Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 8.djvu/153

 In the following year (1805) a similar vacancy occurred in the university of Edinburgh, by the death of Dr. Robinson, and again Chalmers entered the lists; but here also he was disappointed, with the consolation, however, that the successful candidate was no other than the celebrated Leslie. This competition called forth his first effort in authorship, in the form of a pamphlet, in consequence of the assertion, that a ministerial charge and scientific appointment combined in one person were incompatible—a pamphlet which, in subsequent years, he laboured to suppress, and gladly would have forgot. At present, however, his expressed opinion was, that "after the satisfactory discharge of his parish duties, a minister may enjoy five days in the week of uninterrupted leisure, for the prosecution of any science in which his taste may dispose him to engage." This, alas! was too true, if that "satisfactory discharge" of parochial duty involved nothing more than the usual routine of a parish minister. Chalmers, therefore, had to find some other outlet for his "uninterrupted leisure;" and after having exhausted the field of St. Andrews, he resumed his lectureship on chemistry in his little parish of Kilmany, and the county town of Cupar. But even yet, something additional was needed, besides the delivery of lectures formerly repeated, and experiments that had been twice tried; and this was soon furnished by Napoleon's menace of invasion. The hostile camp of the modern Cæsar at Boulogne, and the avowed purpose for which it had been collected, roused the spirit of Britain, so that military associations were formed, from the metropolis to the hamlet, in every part of our island. This was more than enough for the ardent spirit of Chalmers, and he enrolled himself in the St. Andrews corps of volunteers, not only as chaplain, but lieutenant. It is well known how this threat of an invasion of Britain was exchanged for an attack upon Austria, and how suddenly the breaking up of the hostile encampment at Boulogne, dismissed a million of armed Britons to their homes and workshops. On doffing his military attire, the minister of Kilmany had other and more professional occupation to attend to at the bed-side of a dying brother, who had returned to his father's home afflicted with consumption, under which he died in a few months. During the last illness of the amiable sufferer, one of the duties of Thomas Chalmers was to read to his brother portions of those religious works which he had denounced from the pulpit as savouring of fanaticism, and to hear the criticism pronounced upon them by the lips of the dying man, as he fervently exclaimed, "I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them unto babes." After this departure from life, which was one of solemn and impressive resignation, Chalmers gave relief to his thoughts, first by a journey to England, in which he visited London, Cambridge, and Oxford, and afterwards by authorship. Independently of mathematics, chemistry, and botany, which his ardent spirit of inquiry had successively mastered, he had studied the science of political economy; and now that Bonaparte had published his famous Berlin decree, by which the mercantile and manufacturing community of Britain was panic-struck, Chalmers produced his "Inquiry into the Extent and Stability of National Resources," to show that this apprehension was groundless. The analysis of this work can be best given in his own account of it. In a letter to his brother he says, "The great burden of my argument is, that the manufacturer who prepares an article for home consumption is the servant of the inland consumer, labouring for his gratification, and supported by the price which he pays for the article; that the manufacturer of an article for exportation is no