His manner of life in Glasgow was as simple and regular as was possible for one so full of occupation and so eagerly sought after by all sorts of people. As a rule, the forenoon was set apart for reading and composition, and no one was allowed to intrude on him then. But sometimes two or three rooms would be filled with persons waiting for him, and it was remarked that, however overwhelmed, he had a kindly smile and greeting for all. The afternoon was devoted to pastoral work; then, if possible, he had a walk in the Botanic Gardens or elsewhere; dinner was at half-past four, and very often he had some public engagement in the evening. In the course of this busy day he found time to read aloud to his wife Milner's _Church History_ or some other such book. His hospitality was boundless. Breakfast, dinner, tea, and supper, almost every day but Sunday, brought a succession of guests; for, apart from his own large circle, hardly a stranger visited Glasgow who did not bring an introduction, and whom he did not invite to his house. His conversation generally was singularly genial, racy, and lively; whoever was in his society was charmed. Formal dinner-parties he held in great abhorrence as a waste of time and worse, and very seldom did he join them. For occasional recreation, his favourite resort was his native Fifeshire; but in the suburbs of Glasgow and other parts of the country he had dear friends with whom he delighted to spend an occasional day or more. And, though no man had more respect for the poor, or more pleasure in his intercourse with them, he had an especial delight in the society of families of the highest rank, when refinement was blended with Christian worth, and the obligations of high station were conscientiously and gracefully fulfilled.
Most memorable in the history of Glasgow and in the history of Scottish Christianity were the eight years of labour spent by Dr. Chalmers in that city. Of individual cases of conversion the number was beyond reckoning; beginning with his dear friend, Thomas Smith, and ending with a Camlachie weaver--a reckless infidel till Dr. Chalmers came across him, but won by the simplicity and earnest sympathy which he showed in weekly visits during the months when he was dying of consumption. And the circumstances of his various converts were very different. The thoughtless young officer, who entered his church with the crowd as he would have entered the theatre; the fashionable lady, whose curiosity led her to hear the great popular orator; the busy merchant, with no thought nor desire beyond material things; the aspiring student, bent only on literary distinction--each person, arrested and brought to Christ by the force of his appeals, represented the many classes from among which, as Dr. Hanna tells us, it was the privilege of Chalmers to gather recruits for the Kingdom of Heaven.
But more than that: under Chalmers the tide of public sentiment turned decisively to evangelical religion. Before he came, evangelical preaching had been looked on as a combination of sour fanaticism and weak sentimentalism; under his preaching it attained its true rank and glory as the very essence of the Gospel message. Before his time, as the population of the city grew from year to year, thousands had been quietly allowed to fall away from all Christian observances, and to form a community of paganism, leavening the city with carelessness and corruption. It was his powerful voice that roused attention to the evil and the danger, and organised the machinery best fitted to grapple with it. Previous to his time, even the most earnest of the ministers in their week-day ministrations had seldom gone beyond their own congregations, or thought much of the careless and godless families around them; it was Chalmers that, by the emphasis he laid on the territorial method, brought into operation that system of aggression which affords the only hope of arresting and reclaiming the outcast mass. Before his time infidelity was doing its deadly work among the more intellectual and cultivated classes, and the spirit of indifference was widely spread even where a formal profession of religion continued; it was in a large measure the influence of Chalmers that restored a living faith in Christ and in redemption, and aroused concern in that class of society for the life to come.