Select Works of Thomas Chalmers Volume 3; Comprising His Miscellanies; Lectures on Romans; Astronomical, Commercial, Congregational, and Posthumous Sermons (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1850 Excerpt: ...are deposited there; and, in the heart even of the most unlettered man, the memory, and the understanding, and the imagination, and the conscience, and every other function and property of the yet inaccessible soul are all in busy operation. To the owner of such an unex plored microcosm, we attach somewhat of the same reverence which we entertain for some profound and hidden mystery--and he who has laboured most anxiously to seize upon the mysteries of our nature, and therefore feels most profoundly how deep and how inscrutable they are, he perhaps is the most predisposed by his pursuits and his habits to "honour all men." Somewhat of the same sentiment is impressed upon us in the midst of a crowd--or as we pass along that street which is alive from morning to night with its endless flow of passengers. We are aware of no contemplation, that is more fitted to annihilate in one's own mind the importance of self; or rather to multiply this feeling, and make it be transferred by us to each individual of that restless and eager population by whom we are surrounded. To think of each having within the precincts of his own bosom, a chamber of thoughts and purposes, and fond imaginations as warm and teeming as our own, and of the busy history that is going on there; that every one of the immense multitude is the centre of his own distinct amphitheatre, which, however unknown to us, is the universe to him; that each meditative countenance of the vast and interminable number bespeaks a play of hopes, and wishes, and interests within, in every way as active, and felt to be of as great magnitude and urgency, as we experience in ourselves--further to think that should my own heart cease its palpitations, and were the light of my own wakeful spirit to be extingu...