From the heated atmosphere of public controversy we make a pleasant transition when we accompany Chalmers on the visits he paid from time to time to London and other places, and when we sit by him in the privacy of his home. We see something of the spontaneous outflow of both mind and heart; we are charmed with his genuine humanity, his interest in life, his humour and simplicity, and, in his devotional hours, with his profound humility and intense aspiration after holiness. He was not much of a traveller, and he lost not a little thereby. All that he ever saw of the Continent was Paris and its environs. Had it been his lot to gaze on the sublimities of the Alps; had he looked on the city of the seven hills, and wandered by the Po and the Tiber; had he pursued his way to Egypt and the East, and familiarised himself with those objects that bore, in his own phrase, so much of the 'hoar of antiquity'; had he visited Berlin, and Leipsic, and Halle, and Tuebingen, and become familiar with the working of the German mind, he would have experienced new developments of soul and spirit, and cut off all ground for the estimate of Carlyle that he was a man of narrow culture. It is remarkable that the United States seem never to have come within his horizon till about the very end. But when he did travel, no man could have enjoyed travelling more, whether his attention was turned to the objects of nature or of art, or whether he regaled himself with the society of new and interesting friends.
With a loyal and lively remembrance of his family, he continued the habit of writing journal-letters to his wife and daughters, giving the fullest details of all that he saw and heard. Usually his journeys to London were occasioned by church business, and on these occasions he had little to say except of any interesting persons that he met. But as he came in contact with not a few of the greatest celebrities of the age, and invariably received much attention from them, these brief notices are very interesting. Sometimes he would quite captivate an Englishman, and lay the foundation of a lifelong intimacy and correspondence. With all the members of the Earlham family that he met (the Gurneys) he was greatly taken; but one of them, Joseph John Gurney, became so attached to him, and so delighted with his conversation and character, that we might almost apply to him the language of Scripture on the attachment of Jonathan to David. _The Chalmeriana_ of Mr. Gurney remind us of Boswell's _Life of Johnson_. Quaker though Gurney was, there was but one subject on which there was any serious difference of opinion between them--the desirableness of a connection between church and state. Gurney had given no little study to the 'evidences,' and his views corresponded to those of Chalmers. Of the gifts and mental power of Chalmers he had the most exalted opinion; all the more was he struck with his remarkable humility, his entire freedom from the airs of a great man.
Another new acquaintance with whom he was greatly charmed was the Rev. Charles Bridges, of Old Newton, Suffolk, the author of _The Christian Ministry_ and the _Exposition of the 119th Psalm_. Of his visit to his house he said: 'The breath of heaven is here; without, a scene of beauty that to the eye of sense is altogether delicious, and within, a sanctuary of love and holiness.... I never witnessed such closeness and efficiency of pastoral work as he exemplified in his addresses to the mothers of families. He makes a real business both of the Christianity of his own soul and the Christianity of his family and parish, watching over the souls of all as one who must give an account.' It was the very singular quality of Chalmers, that while he could hold kindred fellowship with so many kinds of men, it was with the holiest and most devoted of God's servants that he found himself in closest sympathy. He could find points of contact with Sir James Mackintosh on ethics, with Malthus on the law of population, with Daniel O'Connell on the Irish poor-law, or with Dr. Whewell on physics, because he had a genuine interest in all their pursuits, and considered that they all had a bearing on the welfare of man. But such pursuits were but outworks: the citadel itself was under charge of men like Mr. Bridges. Their specialty was to deal with the very essence and marrow of truth, and especially that great redemptive scheme by which alone the world could be truly blessed; they lived under the shadow of the tree of life, whose leaves were for the healing of the nations.