Chalmers, THOMAS, D.D., LL.D., was born at Austruther, in Fife, 17th March 1780, educated at the university of St Andrews (from 1791), and at the age of nineteen licensed to preach the gospel. In 1803 he was ordained minister of the parish of Kilmany, in Fife, about 9 miles from St Andrews. At this period his attention was almost entirely absorbed by mathematics and natural philosophy. He carried on mathematical and chemistry classes in St Andrews during the winter of 1803-1804, and by his enthusiasm and lucidity of exposition obtained for himself a high reputation as a teacher. In 1808 he published an Inquiry into the Extent and Stability of National Resources. Shortly after this, domestic calamities and severe illness rendered him keenly susceptible of religious impressions. Having to prepare an article on Christianity for Brewster's Edinburgh Encyclopedia, he commenced a thorough study of the evidences, and rose from his investigations convinced that Christianity was the truth, and the Bible the veritable 'word of God.' Then the great genius of the man broke forth like sunshine. He grew earnest, devout, and faithful to his pastoral duties. In July 1815 he was translated to the Tron Church and parish, Glasgow, where his magnificent oratory took the city by storm. His Astronomical Discourses (1817) and Commercial Discourses (1820) had a widely extended popularity. In 1817 he visited London, where his preaching excited as great a sensation as at home. But Chalmers' energies could not be exhausted by mere oratory. Discovering that his parish was in a state of great ignorance and immorality, he began to devise a scheme for overtaking and checking the alarming evil. It seemed to him that the only means by which this could be accomplished was by 'revivifying, remodelling, and extending the old parochial economy of Scotland,' which had proved so fruitful of good in the rural parishes. In order to wrestle more closely with the ignorance and vice of Glasgow, Chalmers in 1819 became minister of St John's parish, of whose 2000 families, mostly workpeople, more than 800 had no connection with any Christian church. Chalmers broke up his parish into 25 districts, each of which he placed under separate management, and established two day schools, and between 40 and 50 local Sabbath schools, for the instruction of the children of the 'poorer and neglected classes,' more than 1000 of whom attended. In many other ways he sought to elevate and purify the lives of his parishioners. While in Glasgow, Chalmers had matured his opinions relative to the best method of providing for the poor. He disliked the English system of a 'compulsory assessment,' and preferred the old Scotch method of voluntary contributions at the church-door, administered by elders. The management of the poor in the parish of St John's was intrusted to his care by the authorities as an experiment, and in four years he reduced the pauper expenditure from £1400 to £280 per annum. Edward Irving was for two years his assistant. But such herculean toils began to undermine his constitution, and in 1823 he accepted the offer of the Moral Philosophy chair in St Andrews, where he wrote his treatise on the Use and Abuse of Literary and Ecclesiastical Endowments (1827). In the following year he was transferred to the chair of Theology in Edinburgh, and in 1832 he published a work on political economy. In 1833 appeared his Bridge-water treatise, On the Adaptation of External Nature to the Moral and Intellectual Constitution of Man. It was received with great favour, and obtained for the author many literary honours; in 1834 he was elected by the Royal Society of Edinburgh first a fellow and then a vice-president, and by the French Institute a corresponding member, while in 1835 the university of Oxford conferred on him the degree of D.C.L. In 1834 he was appointed convener of the Church-extension Committee; and after seven years of enthusiastic labour, he announced that upwards of £300,000 had been collected from the nation, and 220 new churches built. Meanwhile, however, troubles were springing up in the bosom of the church itself. The Evangelical party had become predominant in the General Assembly; the struggles in regard to patronage between them and the 'Moderate' or 'Erastian' party became keener and more frequent, until the decision of the civil courts in the famous Auchterarder and Strathbogie cases brought matters to a crisis; and on the 18th of May 1843 Chalmers, followed by 470 clergymen, left the church of his fathers, rather than sacrifice those principles which he believed essential to the purity, honour, and independence of the church (see FREE CHURCH). The rapid formation and organisation of the Free Church were greatly owing to his indefatigable exertions. Chalmers was elected principal of the Free Church College, and spent the close of his life in the zealous performance of his duties there, and in completing his Institutes of Theology. He died suddenly at Morningside, Edinburgh, May 30, 1847.
The works of Chalmers extend to 34 vols. (9 of which include his posthumous works). They contain valuable and, in some cases, original contributions to the sciences of natural theology, Christian apologetics, and social economy; while on minor topics, such as the church-establishment question, they exhibit both novelty and ingenuity of argument. As a religious orator Chalmers was unique and unrivalled. There have been few men in whom such gifts of intellect, feeling, and imagination were so harmoniously combined with the shrewdest common-sense and the highest administrative ability. Never did Scotland produce a greater or more lovable soul, one more gentle, guileless, and genial-hearted, or yet more fervid from the strength of a resolute will, before whose impetus difficulties were dashed aside as by a torrent. There have been loftier and more purely original minds in Scotland than Chalmers's, but there has never been a truer one, nor a heart whose Christian faith and piety were more intense, sincere, and humane.
See his Memoirs, by his son-in-law, Dr W. Hanna (4 vols. 1849-52), and his Correspondence (1853); also A Biographical Notice by Dean Ramsay (1850), an Essay by Dr John Brown in his Horæ Subsecivæ, and small books on him by D. Fraser (1881) and Mrs Oliphant (1893).