CHAPTER XIX - DEATH OF DR. CHALMERS.—TOUR THROUGH SOUTH INDIA.—HOME BY THE GANGES AND INDUS

Summary

It was early on a Friday morning in July, 1847, while Dr. and Mrs. Duff were enjoying on the house-top, as was their wont, the too brief hours of coolness before the tropical sun should rise high in the heavens, that an Episcopalian friend communicated to them the fact of the death of Dr. Chalmers, “the venerated father of your Church.” The news seemed incredible. By the previous mail Dr. Duff had heard of his evidence, before the House of Commons' committee, on the refusal of sites for the erection of Free churches, and of the gathering of statesmen like Lord John Russell and of the London crowd to hear his ripened eloquence. But the Government express mail had brought the intelligence, which moved even educated Hindoo society, familiar with his writings and taught by his greatest students. To Dr. Duff the loss, suddenly announced, was not that of a father and a friend alone. Nor was his sorrow the offspring of gratitude merely to the memory of one whose lectures and training and personal influence for five years had done more to make the Highland student what he had become than any other single influence. Nor did he think chiefly, moreover, of the solemn hour of his ordination in St. George's, and the second charge given to him in the same place by the great departed as by Paul to Timothy.