Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 8.djvu/160

108 and they make a mere churchwarden of him." His objections were at length overruled, and on being elected by a large majority of the town-council of Glasgow, he signified his acceptance, and was inducted into his important charge on the 21st July, 1815, when he had reached the matured and vigorous age of thirty-five. It was a day of impatient expectation in our metropolis of manufactures and commerce, as after his acceptance, and four months previous to his admission, its citizens had enjoyed the opportunity of hearing with their own ears a specimen of that eloquence which hitherto they had known only by report. The occasion was the annual meeting of the Society of the Sons of the Clergy, held at Glasgow, before which Chalmers was appointed to preach; and the feeling of the vast multitude that sat electrified beneath his wondrous power might have been expressed in the language of the Queen of Sheba: They had heard of it only, and could not believe; but now they found that half of the truth had not been told them.

As soon as he had got fairly located in Glasgow, Chalmers found that, notwithstanding all his previous stipulations to that effect, his time was no longer to be his own. But still worse than this, he found that it was to be frittered away in ten thousand frivolous occupations with which, he justly thought, his sacred office had nothing to do. Three months had scarcely elapsed, when we find him thus writing on the subject: "This, Sir, is a wonderful place; and I am half-entertained, half-provoked by some of the peculiarities of its people. The peculiarity which bears hardest upon me is, the incessant demand they have upon all occasions for the personal attendance of the ministers. They must have four to every funeral, or they do not think that it has been genteelly gone through. They must have one or more to all the committees of all the societies. They must fall in at every procession. They must attend examinations innumerable, and eat of the dinners consequent upon these examinations. They have a niche assigned them in almost every public doing, and that niche must be filled up by them, or the doing loses all its solemnity in the eyes of the public. There seems to be a superstitious charm in the very sight of them; and such is the manifold officiality with which they are covered, that they must be paraded among all the meetings and all the institutions." It was not without cause that he thus complained; for in coming to details, we find him at one time obliged to sit in judgment as to whether such a gutter should be bought up and covered over, or left alone as it stood; and whether ox-head soup or pork broth was the fittest diet for a poor's house; alternated, on going home, with the necessity of endorsing applications of persons wishing to follow the calling of spirit-sellers and pedlars. This, indeed, was to have "greatness thrust upon him!" But the evil had originated in Glasgow so early as the days of the covenant, when every movement was more or less connected with religion; and it was perpetuated and confirmed by the mercantile bustle that succeeded in later periods, when every merchant or shopkeeper was eager to devolve upon the minister those occupations that would have interfered with his own professional pursuits. These difficulties Chalmers was obliged to wrestle down as he best could, and at the risk of being complained of as an innovator; but a persevering course of sturdy refusal at length reduced the grievance to a manageable compass. When this was surmounted, there was still another trial to be got rid of, that originated in his own daily increasing popularity. He was now the great mark of admiration and esteem, so that all were not only eager to visit him, but to have their visits reciprocated. When these demands were also comprised within tolerable