ssage which led into the Tron Church. Across the
street, and immediately opposite to this passage, was the old
reading-room, where all the Glasgow merchants met. So soon, however, as
the gathering quickening stream upon the opposite side of the street
gave the accustomed warning, out flowed the occupants of the
coffee-room; the pages of the Herald or the Courier were for a while
forsaken, and during two of the best business hours of the day the old
reading-room wore a strange aspect of desolation. The busiest merchants
of the city were wont, indeed, upon those memorable days to leave their
desks, and kind masters allowed their clerks and apprentices to follow
their example. Out of the very heart of the great tumult an hour or two
stood redeemed for the highest exercises of the spirit; and the low
traffic of earth forgotten, heaven and its high economy and its human
sympathies and eternal interests, engrossed the mind at least and the
fancy of congregated thousands.

In January, 1817, this series of discourses was announced as ready for
publication. It had generally been a matter of so much commercial risk
to issue a volume of sermons from the press, that recourse had been
often had in such cases to publication by subscription. Dr. Chalmers's
publisher, Mr. Smith, had hinted that perhaps this method ought in this
instance also to be tried. "It is far more agreeable to my feelings,"
Dr. Chalmers wrote to him a few days before the day of publication,
"that the book should be introduced to the general market, and sell on
the public estimation of it, than that the neighborhood here should be
plied in all the shops with subscription papers, and as much as possible
wrung out of their partialities for the author." Neither author nor
publisher had at this time the least idea of the extraordinary success
which was awaiting their forthcoming volume. It was published on the
28th of January, 1817. In ten weeks 6000 copies had been disposed of,
the demand showing no symptom of decline. Nine editions were called for
within a year, and nearly 20,000 copies were in circulation. Never
previously, nor ever since, has any volume of sermons met with such
immediate and general acceptance. The "Tales of my Landlord" had a
month's start in the date of publication, and even with such a
competitor it ran an almost equal race. Not a few curious observers were
struck with the novel competition, and watched with lively curiosity how
the great Scott