Brewster, on the " Evidences of Christianity , " and he had to study the Christian religion and the proof which can be adduced in its favor more carefully and earnestly than he had ever done before.Meanwhile there occurred a number of deaths among his relatives, and he was deeply affected.He now felt himself called on to strive after a pure and heavenly morality.March 17, 1810, -- I have this day completed my thirtieth year; and, upon a review of the last fifteen years of my life, I am obliged to ac knowledge that at least two-thirds of that time have been uselessly or idly spent, sometimes to while away an evening in parish gossip or engaging in a game at cards." A change has evidently come over him he did not yet open it fully, but he made allusions to it.I find that principle and reflection afford a feeble support against the visitations of melancholy." He was subjected to a period of confinement, and was led to read Wilberforce's " Practical View." " The conviction was now wrought in him that he had been attempting an impossibility;that he had been trying to compound elements which would not amalgamate; that it must be either on his own merits wholly or on Christ's merits wholly he must lean." He now betook himself in earnest to the study of the Bible.A visible change appeared in him.He became more diligent in the visitation of his parish, and his sermons had a power over his people such as they never had before.{306}
One so able, so earnest, must take an active part in the affairs of his country and of his age.He sets out with an excessive admiration of the parochial system of Scotland, not just as an end in itself, but as fitted to accomplish the ends which his great heart cherished.It seemed to him to provide every thing which the good and the elevation of a country required.It secured a school in every parish, and a minister to preach to and to visit every man and woman, and a body of assistant elders to watch over the morals of the community.It provided, too, for the wants of the poor by a voluntary relief which did not interfere with their spirit of independence.The whole system bulked in magnificent proportions before his splendid imagination.No doubt he saw that the church was not realizing this pattern: he knew that there were ministers around him who were not fulfilling these high ends.But then the church, by the exercise of the high prerogatives given it by Christ, could restrain the evils of patronage, and carry out thoroughly the original design of the Church of Scotland.He did not foresee the difficulties he would have to meet in carrying out his grand ideal,-difficulties arising from the State, which did not wish too zealous and too powerful a Church, and on the part of the people, who were jealous of too strong an ecclesiastical organization.
He was called to Glasgow in 1815, and there labored with all his might to put his idea in execution, first in the Tron Church and then in St.John's Church, -- built expressly for him.He preached as no man in Glasgow had ever preached before.He visited from house to house, and thus became aware of, and hastened to proclaim to all men, the awfully degraded condition to which Glasgow, and, as was soon discovered by others, to which all the great cities in Scotland and England had been reduced.The world, as well it might, was startled and awed by the scene disclosed.The philosophers had made no inquiry into the subject, and had no remedy for the evil.The refined city ministers were satisfied with preaching well-composed sermons, moral or evangelical, to the better classes.The dissenters ministered zealously to their own select congregations, but were not able for the Herculean task of cleansing the impurity which had been accumulating for ages.But the evils must be remedied.So he set about erecting chapels, and {397} called on the paternal government to endow them.But he met with opposition from statesmen not willing to tax the community for the benefit of one sect, and from dissenters who believed that their own method of spreading the gospel was the better.The voluntary question was started, and he threw himself into the fight, and defended religious establishments on the ground that man, being carnal, would not seek for spiritual things, which could not, therefore, be left to the ordinary political principle of demand and supply, -- thereby, as some of us think, overlooking the power in the living converted members of the church, who are more likely than the State to supply what is wanted to the careless and the outcast.He certainly did not estimate, as he ought to have done, the enmity of the world toward the church,-an enmity which met him at every point.But he persevered manfully, never losing sight of his grand aim.