had to encounter many hard sayings and much opposition. But he was confident of his integrity in thus repelling practically an injurious charge; and with no little dignity and force maintained that he was bound to take this step in order to uphold his reputation as a teacher. And such was his simplicity and geniality of manner that he felt no embarrassment in going about among the very professors and others who had condemned him most. After a few weeks, in addition to his three classes of mathematics, he announced his intention of opening a class of chemistry. This created a fresh storm of opposition. But the class prospered, it was conducted with the greatest enthusiasm, and the very fact of so young a man braving the opposition of the whole university in order to defend his reputation gave a chivalrous aspect to the proceeding, which toned down the current of opposition. By the end of the session he and the professors were all on good terms. It was a marvellous proof of his energy alike of mind and body that he was able to do all his academic work, and at the same time write sermons and deliver them at Kilmany, without breaking down, without even the appearance of exhaustion. On the 14th March, after five months of this labour, he wrote to his father, 'My hands are full of business. I am living just now the life I seem to be formed for—a life of constant and unremitting activity.' Of the whole forty-three years that formed the remainder of his life, nearly the same thing might have been said.

The mathematical classes were not repeated in the following session, but the chemical lectures were resumed, and carried on twice a week with increased enthusiasm. The lectures were subsequently repeated at Kilmany and at Cupar. Once, when at a loss for means to assist a friend at Kirkcaldy, who had been associated with him in the volunteer service, the chemical lectures were trotted out to the rescue. It was necessary, when he went to a town, to carry materials for experimenting with him, and Dr. Hanna tells how on one occasion one of the bottles that hung from his saddlebag having been broken, the contents were discharged on the flank of his horse, where they left a discoloured belt to tell the tale. Of this accident the present writer remembers to have heard a more detailed version, according to which the accident to the bottle, which contained sulphuric acid, was not discovered till he was in the class-room. The moment it was perceived, Chalmers, in great excitement, exclaimed, 'Oh, my poor beast!' and rushed from the lecture-room to the stable to do whatever was possible to relieve the sufferings of the unfortunate animal.

It did not escape the notice of the Presbytery that the minister of Kilmany was so much occupied with work outside his parish. But the standard of ministerial activity was low, and Chalmers had not much difficulty in defending himself. In a very short time his thoughts were again turned to the university, but in another connection. The chair of natural philosophy became vacant, and he entered the lists as a candidate. But as the election was in the hands of the professors, he could not have seriously dreamt of success. Nor was he much concerned for his failure. 'My contempt,' he wrote, 'for the low, shuffling artifices of college politics supports and elevates my mind against the vexation of regret.'

A few weeks later, in January 1805, the University of Edinburgh lost one of its most eminent professors—Dr. Robison, of whom mention has already been made. Professor Playfair obtained his chair, leaving that of mathematics, which he had held before, to be filled up. Chalmers was again in the field, but no qualifications that he could appeal to were a match for those of the successful candidate—Mr. (afterwards Sir John) Leslie. In the course of the contest he came for the first time before the public as an author. Among the candidates was the Rev. Dr. Macknight, one of the ministers of Edinburgh, in opposition to whom Professor Playfair had written to the patrons, remonstrating against such a conjunction of offices. Mr. Chalmers's pamphlet (which was anonymous) was entitled, Observations on a passage in Mr. Playfair's Letter to the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, relative to the Mathematical Pretensions of the Scottish Clergy. He had ceased to have any personal interest in the case, and his whole object was to show that a Scottish clergyman might be abundantly qualified for the duties of a chair in addition to those of a parish. 'The author of this pamphlet,' he said, 'can assert from what to him is the highest of all authority, the authority of his own experience, 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.' When the religious views of Mr. Chalmers underwent the great change which will be described afterwards, he was much distressed for this publication, and did his utmost to withdraw it from circulation. In a discussion on pluralities in the General Assembly some years afterwards, he argued vehemently against both the principle and practice of pluralities; and, being twitted with having at one time pronounced in their favour, he candidly admitted that he had done so, but it was in the days of his spiritual blindness. The chair involved was a chair of mathematics. 'What, sir,' he asked, 'are the objects of mathematical science? Magnitude and the relations of magnitude. But then, sir, I had forgot two magnitudes: I thought not of the littleness of time; I recklessly thought not of the greatness of eternity!'

However imperfectly he might have been discharging the duties of his Kilmany charge, Mr. Chalmers was exceedingly kind and exemplary to the members of his own family, one of whom, his sister Jane, for whom through life he had the warmest affection, kept house for him, while various others were more or less resident in his manse. One brother, George, a favourite of the family, spent some months at Kilmany in the autumn of 1806, in very touching circumstances. He was a sailor by profession, and at the age of twenty-three commanded a merchant ship, which being attacked by a French privateer, gallantly drove off the enemy; but the skipper, lying down on deck, exhausted after the fight, caught the seeds of consumption, which gradually prevailed against him. His mother, three of his sisters, and two of his brothers were all around him at Kilmany, but no material improvement took place. Returning to Anstruther, George calmly awaited his coming end, with a firm trust in the merit of his Saviour. Every evening one of Newton's (of Olney) sermons was read at his bedside by one of the family in rotation. It was one of the books which his brother had lately denounced from the pulpit of Kilmany, as drawing men away from the wholesome teaching of the gospels. Yet to his dying brother it brought heavenly comfort. And evidently that brother enjoyed a secret something which he had not. Could he be wrong? Must there not be reality in the experience that took away all fear of death, and made the youth of twenty-three so willing to die? 'The deep impression made by George's death,' says Dr. Hanna, the chief biographer of Chalmers, 'was the first step towards his own conversion.'

Less than two years after, his sister Barbara, who was five years older than himself, sickened and died. The same fell disease which had cut off George proved fatal to her. But her father could write of her that she showed a cheerful submission to the will of God, and a humble confidence in the satisfaction of her great Redeemer. Here was another case of one very near and dear to him deriving all her support and comfort in the hour of death from a source which he had been accustomed to associate with superstition and fanaticism. Again the question could not but