sembly, however, determined that an appeal against this decision should be carried to the House of Lords, so that it was not yet final. But it became final in May 1839. In the assembly of 1839 Chalmers, who had not been a member for six years, spoke emphatically against the claims to control the spiritual jurisdiction of the church put forth by the civil courts, and thereafter he took a most active part in negotiations designed to terminate the collision through a legislative enactment recognising, in some shape, the rights of the people. All the efforts thus made to heal the breach, though continued for some years, proved in vain. The church having subjected to discipline certain ministers of the presbytery of Strathbogie who had disregarded her orders by obeying the court of session, and Chalmers being among those who for this reason were held rebels against the law of the land, parties became so keen that all efforts at conciliation were encompassed with very great difficulties. Meanwhile the civil courts gave fresh decisions, impugning more and more the principles held to be indispensable by Chalmers and others, denying among other things the right of the church to form quoad sacra parishes, or to make the ministers of new churches members of church courts, thus aiming a heavy blow at the church extension enterprise of Chalmers, which had added two hundred ministers and quoad sacra parishes to the establishment. The result is well known. Neither parliament nor government would admit the claims of the church. On 18 May 1843 a formal separation from the established church took place on the part of those who were opposed to the pretensions of the civil court. Four hundred and seventy ministers resigned their livings and joined the Free church. Chalmers was elected first moderator of the free protesting church of Scotland. The disruption was ‘a sore, bitter, crushing disappointment—the blasting of all his fondest hopes.’ The step on his part was prompted by the conviction that under the fetters of the civil courts the church could never grapple effectually with the great work of reclaiming and elevating the whole population of the country, and his consolation lay in the hope that the disestablished church would now address herself to the task, that thus the home heathen would yet be reclaimed, and the desert and solitary place be made to rejoice and blossom as the rose.
But it was necessary to find means of support for the disestablished church. To this question Chalmers bent his mind a year before the catastrophe occurred. The result was his devising the well-known sustentation fund, with which the history of the Free church has been identified. It was founded on a very simple arithmetical principle. On the basis of a contribution from each member of a penny a week, Chalmers showed that a stipend of 150l. a year might be provided for five hundred ministers. Great incredulity followed his announcement of his plan, but its foundations were on solid rock, and ultimately it found favour. Though not without weak points, it was adopted by the church; it has been substantially carried out ever since, and though the number of ministers is now double what Chalmers contemplated, the amount paid to each exceeds considerably what he proposed.
This matter being disposed of, Chalmers now returned to the great scheme which he had cherished so warmly since his entry into Glasgow. The home-heathen problem was still unsolved. In the great cities especially there were yet many thousands attending no church, many of them in a condition of fearful degradation. In his eyes there was just one way of dealing effectually with this problem—the territorial, aggressive system. After the recent ecclesiastical changes, he could not hope to carry out any undertaking directed to this object on a scale corresponding to the extent of the evil. But he might, by an experimentum crucis, show the possibility of success under his scheme. He selected the West Port, one of the worst districts of Edinburgh, for a territorial experiment. Marking off a district with a population of about two thousand souls, he divided it into sub-districts, as in Glasgow, and obtained the aid of a body of zealous christian friends as visitors, each to labour in a sub-district of a few families. Engaging an old malt-barn, he procured the assistance of a zealous and able student to labour among the people and conduct sabbath services in the barn. A day school was opened for the children of the district, and, contrary to the remonstrances of many friends, a fee was exacted for their education. The sabbath school was added to the day school. By-and-by a plain church and school were built. Begun in 1845 this enterprise had become a great success before his death in 1847. Its subsequent history has been most encouraging. What Chalmers desired was that similar churches should be built in every suitable locality, till the whole destitution of Scotland should be overtaken. It was an unspeakable joy to him, after the loud sounds of long and bitter controversy, to return to this practical outcome of all his ecclesiastical ideas, and show the bearing of all on the good of the country and the elevation of its lowest class, and thus on the solution of the most difficult of all the
