Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 8.djvu/165

Rh and twenty more ministers," for that city alone; and this desideratum he boldly announced in his sermon on the death of the Princess Charlotte in 1817. Such a conclusion was but the unavoidable result of a train of premises to which all were ready to assent, while the demand itself, instead of being extravagant, was considerably short of the emergency. And yet it was clamoured at, and cried down in every form of argument and ridicule, as the wildest of all benevolent extravagancies, and even the addition of a single church, which the magistrates had decided a few months previous, was thought too much. But strong in the confidence of truth, Dr. Chalmers held fast to his much decried doctrine, until he had the satisfaction of finding his church extension principle generally adopted, and not twenty, but two hundred additional churches erected in our towns and cities, to attest the soundness of his argument, and reward the zeal with which he had urged it.

The one additional church to which we have adverted, was that of St. John's, of which he was elected to be minister, with a new parish attached to it of ten thousand persons, almost entirely operatives. It redounds to the honour of the magistrates and town council of Glasgow to state, that this erection of a new parish and church, was for the purpose of giving Dr. Chalmers full opportunity of testing the parochial principle as applied to large towns; and that for this purpose they freed him from those restrictions which had gathered upon the old city charges, and conceded to him and his kirk session a separate independent parochial jurisdiction. The building, being finished, was opened on the 26th September, 1819, and crowded by its new parishioners, who had now their own church and minister, while the latter met them with equal ardour, and commenced at once the duties of his new sphere. He was ably seconded by his elders, a numerous body of active, intelligent, devoted men, and by the deacons, whose office was restored to its original efficiency under his superintendence; and as each had his own particular district to which his labours were confined, every family and every individual in the new parish, containing a population of ten thousand, had his own spiritual and temporal condition more or less attended to. In addition to these aids, he was soon surrounded by eighty Sabbath-school teachers, each superintending the religious education of the children belonging to his own little locality. These labours were not long continued until another great parochial want called forth the attention of Dr. Chalmers. It was the state of secular education, which, defective as it was throughout Glasgow in general, was peculiarly so in the new parish, whose population chiefly consisted of weavers, labourers, and factory-workers—persons who were unable to obtain a good education for their children, notwithstanding its cheapness as compared with that of England. On account of this, it was soon found in the Sabbath-schools that many of the children could not read a single verse of Scripture without such hammering as to make its meaning unintelligible. Something must be done, and that instantly, to counteract the evil. But mere charity schools and gratis education were an abomination to the doctor, who well knew that that which is got for nothing is generally reckoned worth nothing, and treated accordingly. The best education at the cheapest rate—the independence of the poor secured, while their children were efficiently taught—this was the happy medium which he sought, and which he found ready to his hand in the plan of Scottish parochial education. Let such a salary be secured for the teacher, that an active and accomplished man will find it worth his while to devote himself to the work; but, at the same time, let the V.