However distinguished may have been the position of this man in point of talent, he failed utterly to command respect; and I chiefly remember his coarse, overbearing tone of boastful superiority, and his abusive language to the compositors who set up his MSS.  That they found the latter difficult of deciphering is not surprising, since the sheet looked less like human calligraphy than a row of bayonets.  McCulloch had edited the ‘Scotsman’ with decided ability, and having attracted the attention of Lord Brougham, had received an appointment in the stationer’s office.  But in his promotion he quickly forgot his humble origin, and displayed his native vulgarity by lording it over the craftsmen who gave form and life to his thoughts.

Among the giants of Scotland at that time, Thomas Chalmers ranked chief, and the death of Sir Walter Scott had left him without a peer.  I used to meet him as he took his early walks, and in his loving way of greeting youth he often bade me a cheerful good-morning.  He was then living at Kinghorn, about eight miles from Edinburgh.  Dr. Chalmers’ robust stature was in keeping with the power of his intellect.  He was of massive frame, and displayed a breadth of shoulder which seemed borrowed from the Farnese Hercules.  Though so distinguished as a divine, there was nothing clerical in his appearance—­nothing of that air of ‘the cloth’ which at once proclaims the preacher.  His noble features were generally overspread with a benevolent smile, which seemed to shed an illumination as though from the ignition of the soul; while at other times he was possessed with a spirit of abstraction as if walking in a dream.

As a theologian, Chalmers was great beyond any of his contemporaries; and yet, strictly speaking, his genius was mathematical, rather than theological.  In this respect he resembled that famed American of whom he professed himself a disciple—­Jonathan Edwards.  Of the latter it is stated by no less a critic than the author of the Eclipse of Faith (Henry Rogers), that he was born a mathematician.  Chalmers, however, was a master of all science, and it would have been difficult for even a specialist to have taken him at an advantage.  As greatness is always set off by simplicity, the latter feature was one of the chief beauties in what we may call the Chalmerian Colossus.  I have often seen him leaning upon the half open door of a smithy, conversing with the intelligent workmen, as they rested from the use of the sledge.  Having referred to his love of children, I may add, in respect to myself, that when I, in my childhood, spoke to him in the street, I was generally favored with an apple.  He was indeed an ardent lover of the young, and his genius seemed to gather freshness from his intercourse with childhood.