It was of course necessary, when he had advanced somewhat in his divinity course, that he should practise the art of composition. His first efforts, we are told, were poor enough. The composition both of his letters and his college exercises was bald, unrelieved by any gleam of fancy or sentiment. But in two years he had learned to write with ease and fluency, and he had formed that remarkable, if somewhat turgid style which he practised ever after. We know so little of the English writers who engaged his attention at this time that the natural history of his style is something of a puzzle. It has somewhat of the swell and dignity of Johnson, and much of the diffuseness of Burke--two of the most prominent writers in his youth. But its main quality must have arisen from the burning fervour of his own mind, and the natural outflow of his thoughts, shaping his language spontaneously, and moulding it into characteristic forms of beauty and power.
When in 1842, on the eve of the Disruption, Chalmers met four or five hundred of his brethren in what was known as the Convocation, and endeavoured to reconcile them to the prospect of an unendowed church, the task was one that demanded the highest efforts of his eloquence. It was his aim to rouse them to an attitude worthy of the occasion, and, with that view, he concluded an appeal of transcendent power with a eulogy of enthusiasm which awakened thunders of applause. Never had he seemed more eloquent. Yet the passage that had so thrilled his audience was found after his death to be an exact transcript from one of his student discourses. 'Enthusiasm is a virtue rarely produced in a state of calm and unruffled repose. It flourishes in adversity. It kindles in the hour of danger and rises to deeds of renown. The terrors of persecution only serve to awaken the energy of its purposes. It swells in the pride of integrity, and great in the purity of its cause, it can scatter defiance amid a host of enemies.'--Already, '_fervet, immensusque ruit_.'
In those days it was the practice of the members of the university to meet morning and evening in the public hall for worship, the prayers being led by the students of divinity. In his first theological session, Mr. Chalmers's prayer was an amplification of the Lord's Prayer, so eloquent and original as to awaken the wonder of all. One who remembered his prayers on these occasions said: 'The wonderful flow of eloquent, vivid, ardent description of the attributes and works of God, and still more, perhaps, the astonishingly harrowing delineation of the miseries, the horrid cruelties, immoralities, and abominations inseparable from war, which always came in more or less in connection with the bloody warfare in which we were engaged with France, called forth the wonderment of his hearers. He was then only sixteen years of age, yet he showed a taste and capacity for composition of the most glowing and eloquent kind. Even then his style was very much the same as at the period when he attracted so much notice, and made such powerful impression in the pulpit and by the press.'
Thus already, in his student days, that great outline of character had begun to shape itself, which, modified afterwards by new and powerful forces, made him the great man he was. The intensity of his nature, the redundant energy that hardly knew fatigue, the largeness of his view, the warmth of his affection, the independence of his judgment, and the gushing impetuosity of his style were manifest from these college days. Whatever he may have derived from his parents, or from the masters that taught him, or the books he read, a fearless, sturdy independence was the ruling feature--he was a genuine Scot.
On finishing his theological studies he accepted a situation as tutor in a family, under the feeling that, as his knowledge of mankind had hitherto been limited to his own family and his fellow-students, it was desirable for him to know a little more of the world. But his experience was not happy. It was not merely that his hours of teaching were so arranged as to leave him hardly any time for reading, but that his treatment was not what he considered due to a gentleman. Of such treatment he was sensitive to the last degree, nor was he restrained by any bashfulness or timidity from expressing his opinion of it. His employer wished to throw the blame on himself, and told him he had too much pride. He could not deny the charge, but showed a ready wit in hurling it back on his accuser. 'Sir,' was his undaunted reply, 'there are two kinds of pride: there is the pride which lords it over inferiors, and there is the pride which rejoices in repressing the insolence of superiors. The first I have none of--the second I glory in.' This, to say the least, was tolerably smart for a lad of eighteen. But it showed not only his independence but his intolerance of opposition. Soon after, he gave up the situation.