membering her worth, and lamenting her departure, had a subject of anxious inquiry bequeathed to him, as to whence that hope and joy had arisen. The first indication of this was given in a change that took place in the course of his authorship. Previous to his sister's decease, and while the "Edinburgh Encyclopædia" was in progress, he had been invited by Dr. Brewster, the distinguished editor, to contribute to the work; and this Chalmers had resolved to do, by writing the article "Trigonometry," for which purpose he had devoted himself to the study of Cagnoli's "Trigonometria Plana e Sferica," at that time the standard work upon the subject. But after her death he changed his purpose, and earnestly requested that the article "Christianity" should be committed to his management, offering, at the same time, to live three or four months in St. Andrews, for the purpose of collecting the necessary materials in the college library. After his sister's decease, the admonitory blow was repeated; this was the death of Mr. Ballardie, a childless old officer of the navy, in whose affection he had found a second father, and who was one evening discovered dead upon his knees, having been called away into life eternal in the very midst of prayer. These warnings were succeeded by a long and severe illness, that reduced him to the helplessness of infancy, and threatened to be fatal; and amidst the musings of a sick chamber, and unquiet tossings upon what he believed to be a deathbed, the anxious mind of Chalmers had full scope for those solemn investigations which the previous calamities had awoke into action. But the trial ended; and after passing through such a furnace, he emerged into life, and the full vigour of life, a purified and altered man. His own account of the change and its process is truly characteristic, and it will be seen from the following extract, that a congenial spirit from the dwellings of the dead had hovered, as it were, beside his pillow, and spoken to him the words of counsel and encouragement. "My confinement," he wrote to a friend, "has fixed on my heart a very strong impression of the insignificance of time—an impression which, I trust, will not abandon me though I again reach the hey-day of health and vigour. This should be the first step to another impression still more salutary—the magnitude of eternity. Strip human life of its connection with a higher scene of existence, and it is the illusion of an instant, an unmeaning farce, a series of visions, and projects, and convulsive efforts, which terminate in nothing. I have been reading Pascal's "Thoughts on Religion;" you know his history—a man of the richest endowments, and whose youth was signalized by his profound and original speculations in mathematical science, but who could stop short in the brilliant career of discovery, who could resign all the splendours of literary reputation, who could renounce without a sigh all the distinctions which are conferred upon genius, and resolve to devote every talent and every hour to the defence and illustration of the gospel. This, my dear sir, is superior to all Greek, and to all Roman fame."
This change which had taken place in the man, was soon manifested in the minister, and the pulpit of Kilmany no longer gave forth an uncertain sound. Hitherto, Chalmers had advocated virtuous feeling and a virtuous life as the head and front of Christianity, to which the righteousness and death of our blessed Saviour were make-weights and nothing more. And yet, even how that little was supplemented, and what was its mode of agency, he could not conjecture. "In what particular manner," he thus preached, "the death of our Redeemer effected the remission of our sins, or rather, why that death was made a condition of this remission, seems to be an unrevealed point in the Scrip-
