engaged in a movement which in after years was to bear fruit little dreamt of—a movement for giving to the members of congregations an efficient voice in the election of their ministers. The ancient constitution of the Scottish church provided for this, but by the act of Queen Anne restoring patronage (1712) the right was practically superseded. In 1832 Chalmers had been called to the chair of the general assembly, and being thus brought more into contact with ecclesiastical matters, he moved in the assembly of 1833 in favour of an enactment, which, though rejected then, was carried next year on the motion of Lord Moncreiff, and is known as the veto law. It was entirely in accord with his views of the moral dignity of the people, and the importance of quickening their interest in the work of the church, that they should have an effective voice in the choice of their pastors. The veto law did not withdraw from the patrons the right of nomination; it only gave to the male heads of families a right of veto. The measure worked remarkably well during the few years when it had a fair trial. But it was this law that gave occasion to the litigation which ended in the disruption of the church ten years afterwards. The veto was then declared to be ultra vires. Chalmers is believed to have wished that this question should be legally settled before the act was passed; but Lord Moncreiff and other eminent lawyers thought that its legality could not be questioned—an opinion afterwards ascertained to have been unfounded.
Fresh honours continued to flow in. In 1834 he was elected a fellow, and in 1835 a vice-president, of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In 1834 he was also elected a corresponding member of the Institute of France, and in 1835 the university of Oxford made him a D.C.L.
During his years of calm academic work Chalmers had never been unmindful of the condition of the country, and especially of its large towns, nor ceased to desire the erection of new churches and parishes where increased population demanded it. In 1821 he had proposed a scheme for the erection of twenty new churches in Glasgow, but the proposal was scouted as visionary. In 1834 the proposal was renewed by an eminent citizen of Glasgow—Mr. W. Collins, publisher—and Chalmers threw himself most heartily into it. Its success led to a larger scheme—the erection of two hundred new churches and parishes throughout Scotland. Though greatly eclipsed by subsequent achievements, this was regarded at the time as an enterprise of extraordinary boldness, but it succeeded through the exertions and influence of Chalmers, who went over the country advocating it. Chalmers was most desirous to obtain help for this scheme from the government, but intense opposition was raised to this endeavour by the advocates of the ‘voluntary’ system, and the desired aid was not obtained. The ‘voluntary controversy,’ directed against all civil establishments of religion, became very lively, and Chalmers came out as the champion of established churches. A course of lectures delivered by him in London in 1838 in their defence was a triumphant success. ‘Dukes, marquises, earls, viscounts, barons, baronets, bishops, and members of parliament were to be seen in every direction.’ ‘London seemed stirred to its very depths. … Probably his London lectures afforded the most remarkable illustrations of his extraordinary power, and must be ranked among the most signal illustrations of oratory in any age.’ It has often been represented as inconsistent in Chalmers to argue so powerfully for establishments in 1838, and five years after head the largest withdrawal from an establishment ever known. But from the beginning he had always maintained that it was essential for a christian church to possess the right of self-government, undisturbed by the intrusion of any secular power, and that the people should not be subjected to the ministrations of clergymen to whom they had a decided antipathy. It was because he believed that these conditions belonged to the Scotch church that his advocacy of its establishment was so strong in 1838; and because he believed that it was deprived of these conditions by what followed, he felt constrained in 1843 to abandon it. It must be said of Chalmers that he was accustomed, in maintaining the two principles of self-government or spiritual independence and non-intrusion, to dwell much less than some of his brethren on the direct ‘divine right’ or scriptural obligation of these principles, and much more on their being indispensable to the efficiency of the church. Deprived of these attributes he thought that an established church was not worth the maintaining, and that it was better to quit the establishment and seek them elsewhere.
Scarcely had the London lectures been delivered (April 1838) when the controversy in the church, commonly called ‘the non-intrusion controversy,’ assumed a new form. A few weeks, indeed, before their delivery (8 March) the court of session had delivered a judgment in the ‘Auchterarder case,’ in which the veto law was declared illegal, and the church courts were virtually called on to disregard it, as a res non. The general as-
