pauperism, and we fear, it must be added, a serious diminution of those good old Scottish habits which discouraged and prevented its growth. The increase of drinking has tended greatly not only to the growth, but to the unmanageableness of pauperism. If the drink-curse could be effectively dealt with, there would be no need for a poor-assessment; the churches of the country, as in time past, would be quite able, as they would be cordially willing, to support the poor. In connection with the literary labours of Dr. Chalmers, reference has already been made to the publication of the _Astronomical Discourses_ in 1817 and the _Commercial Discourses_ in 1820. In addition to these, we have to note a volume of _Miscellaneous Discourses_ published in 1819. While this volume was passing through the press, he expressed his belief that it would bring another nest of hornets about him, in the shape of angry critics and reviewers. ’It has been singularly the fate of my publications to be torn to pieces in the journals, but at the same time to be extensively bought and read.’ An edition of seven thousand copies of the new volume was printed, but the result was the reverse of what he anticipated; the journals did not cut it up, nor did the public buy it up, with the same avidity as before. But even in this our day of vast editions, seven thousand copies of a volume of sermons would be an unprecedented undertaking. A much more out-of-the-way publication, in the successive numbers, was the _Civic and Christian Economy of Large Towns_. This was most emphatically a Chalmerian project. It originated about the time of his appointment to St. John’s, in his determination to set himself right against a calumnious charge that he was secretly aiming at a vacant chair in the University of Edinburgh, and ready to leave in the lurch the friends who were to aid him in the St. John’s undertaking. Nothing could have hurt him more than a charge of underhand scheming. A fugitive pamphlet might have served his purpose; but a wider project took hold of him, of enlightening his congregation and the public generally from time to time on all that concerned the prosperous administration of the parish, and of large towns generally. The first number was published on 24th September 1819, and the succeeding numbers followed quarterly in unbroken succession until his removal to St. Andrews. We see again how far he was in advance of his age in the importance which he attached to a sound Christian economy of large cities. Seventy-eight years ago, large towns were far fewer than they are now, and of course much smaller, and they had scarcely begun to attract attention as a novel and difficult feature of our social condition. Yet Chalmers was all alive to their importance, and keenly pondered the measures necessary for their administration. And the result shows how true his forecast was. Not only had he thought out the