We have already adverted to some of his appearances in the General Assembly, but to these we must now add a remarkable pleading, in 1828, in favour of the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. The royal assent had just been given to a bill repealing these Acts, but so vital did the matter appear to Dr. Chalmers, that he proposed that the Assembly should present a humble Address to his Majesty, expressing its satisfaction that it was no longer requisite to take the sacrament as a qualification for civil office. In his speech he compared the old law, viewed as a buttress to the Established Church, to those wooden props which one sometimes sees leaning obliquely against the walls of a house,—creating the impression that when a house needs such props, it is one of the craziest in the street. Yet he was careful to affirm his high regard for an established church in itself, apart from such miserable buttresses. His motion was lost by 123 votes to 77, but in spirit the Assembly agreed with him. As he was making his speech, his eye met that of Edward Irving, who was sitting opposite him, and who was wild on the opposite side. Irving was then delivering lectures on prophecy in Edinburgh to enormous audiences. Already he was manifesting symptoms of that disordered judgment which ultimately carried him so far astray, and Chalmers was sorely troubled. As to his dealings with his own family, the same warmth of heart continued to show itself toward them which his earlier years had manifested. When his sister Isobel, next younger to himself, was dying, in the middle of his first session at St. Andrews (January 1824), he charged himself with her case as if it were his chief interest, and for a twelve-month wrote letter after letter to her, pressing on her with equal tenderness and earnestness all that bore on her spiritual welfare. He was greatly cheered to learn that she was full of peace and joy in believing, and able to sustain with cheerful patience the sore pains that accompanied her illness. Her life closed with the closing year, and with her declaration that Jesus was fulfilling to her His latest promise, for He was now coming to receive her to Himself.