But it should be remembered that Chalmers was by instinct an enforcer, a preacher of truth; he would fling thunderbolt on thunderbolt, till he sent one fairly home; he looked upon what he delivered not so much as something for its own sake to be demonstrated, as what was to tell on the public mind, and be impressed upon it with that view. He wrote with the sound of the world in his ears; every one of his books seems anchored to earth.

At last his earthly Sabbath came to an end. He had been in London, giving evidence before a committee of the House of Commons. His intellect, as this evidence testifies, was still clear and strong, and in private he was the same quiet but genial and hearty man that he had ever been. He visited Mr. Carlyle, and the two extraordinary Scotchmen had an acquiescing and cordial conversation, with "a great deal of laughing on both sides." He returned to Edinburgh about the time when the Assembly of the Free Church met; on Friday, May 28, 1847.

On the Sabbath evening that followed, he was more than usually benignant and genial; but a cloud might be seen to flit across his features, and walking in the garden he was heard, in low but very earnest tones, saying, "O Father, my Heavenly Father!" His general aspect, however, was one of cheerful and genial composure.

Next day, the May morning rose over Arthur Seat, and the Castle rock, and the spires and palaces of that lordly city which he loved so well. Men rose bustling after the Sunday rest, and the conversation in town would turn largely on the doings of the two assemblies, and the appearance he was to make that day. But as the hours wore on a whisper stole over the city, stopping for a moment every breath: Chalmers

was dead. One had entered his room in the morning and found him motionless: "he sat there, half erect, his head reclining gently on his pillow; the expression of his countenance that of fixed and majestic repose." The land mourned for him, as Judah and Israel mourned for the good kings of old.

In the first part of this work, we made reference to that modern school of infidelity which holds of pantheism; and, in succeeding portions, we have mainly endeavored to combat its views and tendencies. But there is another school of infidelity, to which we have but alluded in passing, and which, whether from the magnitude of its pretensions, the talent of its disciples, or the appalling completeness of its results, deserves consideration. We mean the school of Auguste Comté, the far-famed Positive Philosophy. To it we devote the present chapter.

We found the essential characteristic of modern pantheism to be an assertion of the divinity of man. Somewhat of study and reflection was necessary to assure us of this. But in the case of the Positive Philosophy there is no such labor necessary it wears its distinctive dogma written on its brow. The ancient Jewish high-priest wore on his forehead, as a sign before which armies and emperors should bow down, the mystic name of Jehovah: this philosophy bears as its badge the express and conclusive legend, There is no God.

We have said that we had, in the preceding pages, but alluded to the atheistic science of Comté. Though not, however, naming either him or his philosophy, we have already, we have no hesitation in asserting, come into the neighborhood