A greater contrast can hardly be imagined than the divinity class-room under his predecessor and under himself. The last professor was a striking illustration of what the essential dulness and lifelessness of Moderatism could produce when matured and crowned by old age and infirmity. Two years before the appointment of Chalmers, a deputation of students, including the late Principal Cunningham and Dr. Wilson of Bombay, had waited on the professor, requesting him (but in vain) to provide a substitute, as his voice could not be heard. Naturally the attendance had fallen to a fraction, and utter lifelessness prevailed. With the appointment of Chalmers, an enthusiasm sprang up unprecedented in the history of the university. ’The introductory lecture,’ says Dr. Hanna, ’was delivered amid rapturous applause, and, with scarcely any sensible abatement, the excitement of that first meeting was sustained throughout the whole of the succeeding session.’ Besides the regular students of the church, a very large body of amateurs attended the course. From these the professor exacted no fee; but at the end of the session, through the Rev. Robert Morehead, an episcopalian clergyman, they asked his acceptance of a sum of money, and, in an elaborate address, expressed the delight and benefit with which they had listened to the course. In subsequent years, Dr. Chalmers re-wrote his divinity lectures, and after his death these were published in two volumes, entitled, _Institutes of Theology_. Besides delivering his own lectures, it was his practice to comment on his textbooks,—Butler’s _Analogy_, Paley’s _Evidences_, and Hill’s _Lectures in Divinity_, his notes on these now forming a separate volume of his _Posthumous Works_.