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* CHAXLONER. 464 CHALMERS. version of the Douai Bible, which is substan- tially that used by English-speaking Catholics. I'or his Life, consult Barnard (1784). CHALTfflERS, Aijjxaxdeu (1759-1834). • A !Scotti>li biujinipher and editor. He was edu- cated in Aberdi-en. and early in life edited sev- eral newspajiers in Loudon, besides eontriliutinj; to periodicals, but he devoted liiniself chielly to ■writing prefaces for new editions of English classics. Of the many works edited by him. The liritish Essai/ists, in forty-five volumes, is still regarded as useful. His fame rests more particu- larly on his General liiographieal Dictionary (.')2 vols., 1812-14), in which, however, the various articles are, for the most part, long and tedious and lacking in research and accuracy. CHALMERS, Ofouce (17-12-1825). A Scot- tish anliijUiirian and historian. He was educated in Aberdeen, studied law in Edinburgh, emigrated to America in 17(j;i. and practiced law in Balli- nioro until the Kevolution. Being a loyalist, he then returned to Great Britain, and from 1780 until his death was chief clerk of the Board of Trade. He wrote a number of works on the Colonies, and biographies of De Foe, Thomas Paine, and Mary, Queen of Scots; but his most important work is Caledonia : A)i Account, His- torical and Topofiraphical, of Xorth Britain (1807-24), which displays i^rofound research into the history of Scotland, and is not yet entirely superseded. CHALMERS, George Paul (1836-781. A Scottish painter, born in Montrose. He studied at the Trustees School in Edinburgh under Scott Lauder, and began by painting portraits. After- wards his work included subject-pictures and landscapes. jVmong these are "The Favorite Air" ( 1854) : "The End of the Harvest" (1873) ; and "Kunning Water" (1875). CHALMERS, Thomas (1780-1847). A Scot- tish theologian. He was born in Anstruther, Fifeshire. Easter day, March 17, 1780, educated at the University of Saint Andrews, and in his nineteenth year licensed to preach the gospel. In 1803 he was ordained minister 'of the parish of Kilmany. in Fifeshire. near Saint Andrews. At this period his attention was entirely absorbed by mathematics, political economy, and natural philosophy, to the neglect of the studies apper- taining to his profession. But pcrsimal illness, new an.xieties, the reading of A'iUicrforce's View of Practical Pcligion. and thought required for his article on Christianity for Brewster's Edin- burf/h Encyclopwdia (1810) awakened his dor- mant spiritual nature, and he grew earnest, elo- f|uent, devout, and faithful to his pastoral duties. In July, 1815, he was translated to the Tron Church and Parish, Glasgow, where his magnificent oratory took the city by storm. His Astronomical Discourses (1817) had a pro- digious popularity. During the same year he visited London, where his preaching excited as great sensation as at home. But Chalmers's energies could not be exhausted by mere oratory. Discovering that his parish was in a state of great ignorance and immorality, he began to de- vise a scheme for overtaking and checking the alarming evil. It seemed to him that the only means by which this could be accomplished was by "revivifying, remodeling, and extending the old parochial economy of Scotland," which had proved so fruitful of good in the rural parishes. In order to wrestle more closely with the igno- rance and vice of Glasgow, Chalmers, in 1819, became minister of Saint John's parish, "the population of which was made up princi]>ally of weavers, laborers, factoiy-workcrs, and other operatives." Of its 2000 families, more than 800 had no connection with any Christian Church and the children were growing up in ignorance. He broke up liis parish into twenty-five districts, each of which he placed under separate manage- ment, and established two week-day schools, and between 40 and 50 local Sabbath-schools, for the instruction of the "poorer and neglected chisses." more than 1000 of wh(nn attended. In a nuiltitude of other ways he sought to elevate and purify the lives of his parishioners. See Chalmers's Christian and Ciric Economy of Large Touns (3 vols., 1821-26). His plan of parochial work carried out in Glasgow, although aban- doned soon after its inception and not elsewhere imitated, may be called the suggestion of the modern method of dealing with the dependent classes as seen in the charity organization so- cieties and in settlement work. His parental relation to these phenomena has found deserved lecognition in the condensed edition of his Christian and Civic Economy, by Prof. C. R. Henderson (New York, 1900), and in a similar work published in London in the same year. Chalmers on Charity, a Selection of Passages and Scenes to Illustrate the Social Teaching and Practical Work of Thomas Chalmers, edited by . Masterman. But such herculean toils began to undennine his constitution, and in 1823 he accepted the offer of the moral philosophy chair in Saint Andrews, where he wrote his treatise on the Use and Ahuse of Literary and Ecclesiastical En- doicments (1827). In 1828 he was transferred to the chair of theology in Edinburgh, and in 1832 published a worl': on political economy in connection with the nu)ral state and moral prospects of society. In 1833 appeared his Bridgewater treatise, On the Adaptation of Ex- ternal Nature to the Moral and Intellectual Constitution of Man. It Nas received with great favor, and obtained for the autluir many literary honors, the Royal Society of Edinburgh electing him a fellow, and the French Institute a corre- sponding member, while the University of Ox- ford conferred upon him the degree of D.C.L. In 1834 he was appointed convener of the church-extension conniiittec; and after seven years of entluisiastic labor, announced that up- ward of £300,000 had been collected from the nation, and 220 new churches built. Jleanwhile, however, troubles were springing up in the bosom of the Church itself. The evangelical party had become predominant in the General Assembly, and came forward as the vindicators of popular rights; the struggles in regard to patronage be- teen them and the 'moderate' or 'Erastian' party became keener and more frequent, until the decision of the civil courts in the famous 'Auchterarder' and 'Strathbogie' eases brought matters to a crisis; and on May 18, 1843, Chal- mers, followed by 470 clergymen, left the Church of his fathers, rather than sacrifice those prin- ciples which he believed essential to the purity, honor, and independence of the Church. (See Pkesbyterian Citirches.) The rapid forma- tion and organization of the Free Church were greatly owing to his indefatigable exertions, in