In All the Annals

“Inlook­ing back over the his­tory of the Chris­t­ian Church, and think­ing of the­great men who have from time to time appeared on her stage, I can­not recall any­man who so bril­liantly com­bined so many qual­i­ties of great­ness as ThomasChalmers.  We may find some men asdis­tin­guished in cer­tain prop­er­ties, nat­ural or acquired: in learning—of both­clas­si­cal and the­o­log­i­cal erudition—in pre­cise rea­son­ing, in ready pow­ers ofdis­cus­sion and debate, in elo­quence, in holi­ness of life, in reg­u­lar­ity ofpur­pose, in deter­mined lead­er­ship, in stead­fast­ness even in adver­sity, inen­ergy of char­ac­ter, in sagac­ity and humor, in attain­ment in sci­ence, in depthof artistry, and in influ­ence upon the widest array in society—equally at home­with princes and with pau­pers, with devout and with doubters, with thethought­ful and with the thoughtless. Where how­ever, shall we find a case in which so much orig­i­nal genius isblended and con­cen­trated in one indi­vid­ual?  Where shall we find a case in which all these rare ele­mentscom­bined with lofti­est Chris­t­ian prin­ci­ple and devot­ed­ness, and the exer­cise ofthe most hum­ble, gen­tle, gen­er­ous, cheer­ful Chris­t­ian virtues?  Surely, such graces are pre­cious few inall the annals of the world.” John Gor­don Lorimer (1808–68), Pas­tor of Free St. David’s, Glasgow