Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 8.djvu/196

144 but not a charity school; on the contrary, the feeling of independence, and the value of education, were to be impressed upon this miserable population, by exacting a fee of 2d. per week from each pupil—for Dr. Chalmers well knew, that even wiser people than those of the West Port are apt to feel that what costs them nothing is worth nothing. All this he explained to them at a full meeting in the old deserted tannery, where the school was to be opened; and so touched were the people with his kindness, as well as persuaded by his homely forcible arguments, that on the 11th of November, 1844, the day on which the school was opened, sixty-four day scholars and fifty-seven evening scholars were entered, who in the course of a year increased to 250. And soon was the excellence of this educational system evinced by the dirty becoming tidy, and the unruly orderly; and children who seemed to have neither home nor parent, and who, when grown up, would have been without a country and without a God, were rescued from the prostitution, ruffianism, and beggary which seemed to be their natural inheritance, and trained into the full promise of becoming useful and virtuous members of society. Thus the cleansing commenced at the bottom of the sink, where all the mephytic vapours were engendered. But still this was not enough, as long as the confirming power of religion was wanting, and therefore the church followed close upon its able pioneer, the school. On the 22d of December, the tan-loft was opened by Dr. Chalmers for public worship, at which no more than a dozen of grown people, chiefly old women, at first attended. But this handful gradually grew into a congregation under the labours of Dr. Chalmers and his staff of district visitors, so that a minister and regular edifice for worship were at last in demand. And never in the stateliest metropolitan pulpit—no, not even when he lectured in London, while prelate and prince held their breath to listen—had the heart of Dr. Chalmers been more cordially or enthusiastically in his work, than when he addressed his squalid auditory in that most sorry of upper rooms in the West Port. And this, his prayers which he penned on the Sabbath evening in his study at Morningside fully confirmed: "It is yet but the day of small things with us; and I in all likelihood shall be taken off ere that much greater progress is made in the advancement of the blessed gospel throughout our land. But give me the foretaste and the confident foresight of this great Christian and moral triumph ere I die. Let me at least, if it be by Thy blessed will, see—though it be only in one or in a small number of specimens—a people living in some district of aliens, as the West Port, reclaimed at least into willing and obedient hearers, afterwards in Thine own good time to become the doers of Thy word. Give me, O Lord, a token for the larger accomplishment of this good ere I die!" Such were his heavenward breathings and aspirations upon the great trial that was at issue in the most hopeless of civic districts, upon the overwhelming question of our day. Would it yet be shown in the example of the West Port, that the means of regenerating the mass of society are so simple, and withal so efficacious? The trial is still in progress, but under the most hopeful auspices. Yet his many earnest prayers were answered. Money was soon collected for the building of a commodious school-room, and model-houses for workmen, and also for a territorial church. The last of these buildings was finished, and opened by Dr. Chalmers for public worship on the 19th of February, 1847; and on the 25th of April he presided at its first celebration of the Lord's Supper. When this was ended, he said to the minister of the West Port church: "I have got now the desire of my heart:—the church is finished, the schools are flourishing, our ecclesiastical