Alongside of these appeals to God for grace and wisdom in public life, numberless passages occur in which one knows not whether to admire more his profound humility or the intensity of his aspirations for a more heavenly condition:--
'1841, May 17. Cannot but remark how I gravitate to ungodliness. Why are my thoughts when alone and not studying so little occupied with God? And oh that in company I might appear more for His glory! Assist me to do this in my family, and let me watch my opportunities for doing Christian good.... Let me carry about with me a distinct confidence in forgiveness through the blood of Christ, and with earnest desire of showing forth His praise and learning His doctrine, let me try how this confidence will work in me. The fruits of righteousness so produced will arise from the sense of my own nothingness, and have Christ alone as their origin.'--'July 10. Am I not too light-hearted and too luxurious, and altogether too self-indulgent? Certain it is that in and of myself I am altogether vile and worthless, and would need, in dependence on grace alone, to have more of watchfulness unto prayer, more of self-denial, and a far more tender sense of the evil of ungodliness than habitually and practically belong to me.'--'July 4. Never am I in a better frame than when dwelling in simple faith on Christ's offered righteousness, and making it the object of my acceptation. O Lord, I pray for more and more of the clearness and enlargement of this view; and grant me the spirit of adoption. Oh that I could attain the experience of him who says, "I have believed, therefore have I spoken"!'
One is constantly reminded in reading the private journals of Dr. Chalmers of the 119th Psalm, with its remarkable combination of profoundest humility and intense and holiest longing for conformity of heart and life to the will of God. And it does not surprise us to learn that the text of Scripture which he felt to describe his own case most correctly was the verse (20), 'My soul breaketh for the longing that it hath unto Thy judgments at all times.'