to the need which existed for missionary | furnished them with the perfection of their joy.' labour at home. He began to doubt -p.122. whether, in deserting Scotland for India, The above description is illustrated by he might not be forsaking a certain for an the account of a clerical dinner given by uncertain field of usefulness. And he took the Presbytery of Edinburgh, to which the refusal of the Indian Directors as a Mr. Haldane was invited about this time. Providential intimation that he was called to labour for the spiritual benefit of his fellow-countrymen. To understand this alteration in his views, we must give some explanation of the state of the Scottish Church as it existed at the end of the last century-a period which has been called the midnight of the Kirk. The Moderate party, as they were termed, had then supreme rule in the Assembly. Their leaders were more than half suspected of infidelity; and the bulk of the party were applying in practice the principles of their chiefs. The ordinary class of ministers are thus described, with the fidelity of an eye-witness, by their brother-presbyter, Dr. Hamilton, of Strathblane, in his autobiography : He went, hoping for spiritual, or at least rational conversation. Instead of this, the company were treated to bacchanalian songs, the wit of which consisted in absurd allusions to their own ministerial functions. The burden of one song was the prescription of a bumper of Nottingham ale' to be taken in the pulpit at the different stages of a Presbyterian discourse; which would certainly have given a most unfair advantage to the preacher over his audience. supplied by the account of a tour which the brothers took in England in their school days under the care of Dr. Adam, the headmaster of the High School at Edinburgh, and Dr. Macknight, the well-known commentator on Scripture. So long as their route lay through Scotland the travellers attended divine service on the Sunday, But Another illustration of Moderatism is 'When they had crossed the Border, and arrived in an Episcopalian country, Dr. Macknight persuaded his learned friend that, being out of the bounds of Presbytery, and under no obligation to countenance Prelatical worship, it would be very absurd to allow their journeying plans to be deranged by the intervention of the Sabbath. This convenient doctrine at first surprised, but at last proved very palatable to the young travellers. For a time Dr. Adam felt very much ashamed when they entered a town or village when the church-going bells were calling the people to the services of the sanctuary. But these scruples were soon overcome by the doughty commentator.'-p. 21. Mr. Haldane's biographer observes, in explanation, with much truth, that at this period The parishes were occupied by the pupils of such divines as Simpson, Baillie, and Wight. Many of them were genuine Socinians. Many of them were ignorant of theology as a system, and utterly careless about the merits of any creed or confession. They seemed miserable in the discharge of every ministerial duty; they eagerly seized on the services of any stray preacher who came within their reach. When they preached, their sermons generally turned on honesty, good neighbourhood, and kindness. To deliver Gospel sermon, or preach to the hearts and consciences of dying sinners, was as completely beyond their power as to speak in the language of angels. And while their discourses were destitute of everything which a dying sinner needs, they were at the same time the most feeble, empty, and insipid things that ever disgraced the venerated name of sermons. The coldness and indifference of the minister, while they proclaimed his own aversion to his employment, were seldom lost on the people. The congregations rarely amounted to a tenth of the parishioners; and one half of this small number were generally, 'The infidelity of David Hume, Adam Smith, during the half-hour's soporific harangue, fast and their coadjutors, first infecting the universiasleep. They were free from hypocrisy; they ties, had gradually insinuated its poison into the had no more religion in private than in public. ministrations of the church. Some had altogether They were loud and obstreperous in declaiming thrown off the mask, like the eminent Professor against enthusiasm and fanaticism, faith and re- Playfair. . . . . Other ministers, with more inligious zeal. Their family worship was often consistency, exhibited the same infidelity, while confined to the Sabbath; or, if observed through they still ate the bread of orthodoxy. Dr. the week, rarely extended to more than a prayer M'Gill, of Ayr, had published a Socinian work, of five or three minutes. But though frightfully yet even he was absolved by the Asimpatient of everything which bore the sem-sembly.. Dr. Robertson, the friend of blance of seriousness and sober reflection, the Hume and Adam Smith, was not without reason elevation of brow, the expansion of feature, the more than half suspected; while Dr. Blair's moral glistening of the eye, the fluency and warmth of sermons had shown how, in Scotland as well as speech, at convivial parties, showed that their in England, the professed ministers of Christ heart and soul were there; and that the pleasures could become (in the words of Bishop Horsley) of the table, and the hilarity of the light-hearted little better than "the apes of Epictetus."" and the gay, constituted their paradise, and p. 122. 14 VOL. XCVIII. The readers of the Life of Dr. Chalmers | will remember how he bears testimony to the existence of the same state of things, and acknowledges that he was himself an unbeliever when he was first ordained to the ministerial office. Robert Haldane was at first, as we have seen, brought into contact with clergymen of a very different stamp from those of the dominant faction-men like Dr. Innes of Stirling, who preached the genuine doctrines of the Westminster divines, and enforced their preaching by their example. But as he gradually learnt that such ministers formed only a small minority of their order, and as farther experience showed him how much there was of spiritual destitution and heathenish brutality among the people, he became convinced that his native country opened before him a field of labour no less important than that of India. This impression must have been much strengthened by the debate on Christian missions which took place in the General Assembly in 1796, at the very time when Mr. Haldane was occupied with the preparations for his own departure, and only a few months before the Indian government rejected his petition. A resolution had been proposed by the religious party in the synod, to the effect that it is the duty of Christians to carry the gospel to the heathen world.' This resolution was opposed by the Moderate' party, and actually rejected by a large majority. Its opponents based their resistance partly on the alleged uselessness of converting barbarians, partly on the duty of providing for domestic before foreign needs. Why not look at home?' they asked. Why send missionaries to foreign parts, when there is so much ignorance, unbelief, and immorality, at your own doors?' The appeal was not lost upon Robert Haldane, who felt its urgency the more, from his conviction that those who made it had no intention of exerting themselves to supply the needs, the existence of which they hypocritically put forward as an evasion. In the year after this debate took place he began, in concert with his brother James, to give practical effect to his new views of duty. Together they founded in Edinburgh the Society for Propagating the Gospel at Home,' with the object of sending out at Robert's expense itinerant preachers, catechists, and schoolmasters, to Christianise the population wherever it should be found most destitute of religious teaching. Such a step necessarily involved a breach of the discipline of the Scotch establishment, and, of course, excited violent opposition. But neither of the brothers had any strong feeling of the evils of religious separation, and they at once emancipated themselves from the yoke of Presbytery; and without waiting for ordination, travelled through the length and breadth of Scotland preaching the Gospel. Their zeal and earnestness were contagious, and they were listened to by crowded audiences wherever they went, The result of this was the formation of several independent congregations, who se ceded from the communion of the Kirk. For these worshippers Robert Haldane built tabernacles' in many places, and provided ministers and endowments. In order to furnish a succession of such pastors, he established theological seminaries at Dundee, Glasgow, and other places, and there maintained between sixty and eighty students, entirely at his own expense, according to a graduated scale for each married and unmarried student. Besides this, he printed for circulation many thousands of religious tracts, and distributed many hundreds of Bibles and Testaments, at a time when the London Tract Society and the Bible Society did not as yet exist. Nor did all this profuseness exhaust his generosity. While engaged in the maintenance of so many expensive institutions at home, he no sooner heard that money was wanted for religious objects abroad than his purse was instantly opened. Thus, when he heard that the Serampore translation of the Scriptures was languishing for want of funds, he at once sent a hundred pounds to its conductors. again, on learning that a plan for educating thirty African children in England was abandoned on pecuniary grounds, he wrote to Mr. Z. Macaulay, then the governor of Sierra Leone, guaranteeing six thousand pounds for the cost of bringing over, educating, and sending back the children, and requesting him to select them, and send them without delay to Edinburgh. And The Ultimately Mr. Haldane withdrew from. this latter scheme, on finding that its originators were not willing to intrust him with the education of the young Africans; but this does not detract from the munificence of his offer, to which he had always annexed the condition of exercising personal superintendence over the children. disagreement, however, which took place between himself and some of his religious friends upon the subject, illustrates the love of power which was one of his chief faults. In fact, like most other men of strong character and great force of will, he was apt to be overbearing, and could not go on long with any object in which he was 1 my ROBERT HALDANE.'-p. 349. denied his own way. Thus it happened.. Being at such a distance, it is uncertain that almost every scheme in which he was whether we shall ever meet on earth. May we engaged in concert with others ended in enjoy a blessed eternity in His presence. I am, some quarrel. And hence, after spending dear Sir, yours, ten years of his life in organising, managing, and maintaining the extensive congregational secessions which we have mentioned, he at last retired from his work disheartened, leaving the New Connexion' as it was called, in a state of hopeless disruption. We will not weary our readers with any I detail of the causes of this disunion, or the minute points of theology and discipline on which the New Connexion split. A principal cause of its dissolution was a difference of opinion between Mr. Haldane and one of his chief allies, a Mr. Ewing, the pastor of the Glasgow congregation, upon certain questions of ecclesiastical order. Finding that they could not agree, Mr. Haldane deemed it his duty to withdraw from Mr. Ewing the maintenance which he had hitherto allowed him. This called forth a most acrimonious pamphlet from the dismissed minister, to which Mr. Haldane replied; whereupon followed rejoinders and sur-rejoinders, to the amount of, we are afraid to say how many, hundred pages. Mr. Ewing seems to have been, or at any rate to have put himself, in the wrong, and was even ungrateful enough to charge his munificent patron with covetousness. Mr. Haldane was himself a very bitter and unsparing controversialist; yet it is gratifying to find that a sense of the Christian duty of forgiveness prevailed over his naturally proud and overbearing temper, even when he had such just cause of provocation. The following letter to Mr. Ewing, written some years after the rupture, is a touching example of the power of Christianity in softening his stern spir it: 'MY DEAR SIR,-Having had the other night a pleasing dream respecting an interview which I thought I enjoyed with you, and which recalled all that tenderness of affection I once had for you, I cannot let the feeling it excited pass without sending you these lines. Life is too short for such a prolonged contention. A great portion of yours and mine has passed since the unseemly strife began. Peace be with you. 'I would not, however, desire to place so important a matter merely on the foundation of feeling; but it appears to me, considering the complication of circumstances which were, and perhaps still are, viewed by us in different lights, and the long period which has elapsed since we met, that while to each of us there are strong grounds for searching of heart, all real or supposed offences may now be mutually set aside, and give place to peace and cordial good will... It was in the year 1810 that Robert Haldane retired from the public labours to which he had devoted the ten best years of his life. Since the sale of his estate he had lived in Edinburgh, except when he was engaged in the inspection of the numerous institutions which he had established in other parts of Scotland. At first, as we have said, he had itinerated as a preacher; but the weakness of his lungs, and the rupture of a blood-vessel, obliged him soon to desist from this employment. His work had consisted in establishing Sundayschools, building chapels, superintending the education of preachers, catechists, and Scripture-readers, and sending out nearly three hundred home and foreign missionaries. In fact, he was discharging in his own person the functions of those societies which have been since established for the sending forth of Bibles, tracts, and missionaries, and other similar purposes. And upon these objects he had, between the years 1798 and 1810, expended no less than 70,0007. This munificent expenditure, however, had not exhausted his large fortune. And now, when he made up his mind to retire from labours whose results had disappointed him, he was able to purchase another estate of considerable size and value, named Auchingray, in Lanarkshire. Here he principally spent the next six years of his life, occupied in his old employments of fencing, draining, planting, and gardening; and all this with so much success, that a property which he found a barren and treeless wilderness, he left a waving forest, studded with slated cottages and new farmhouses. Such employments, however, were now but the relaxations of his leisure, not the serious business of his life; for though disheartened by what appeared, comparatively speaking, the fruitlessness of his own labours, he had not abandoned his religion. He now gave himself up to religious meditation and theological study. For the latter, indeed, he was strictly speaking disqualified, by his ignorance of the learned languages. But this was a disqualification which he did not himself appreciate; and he seems to have carefully and conscientiously studied the chief English works upon the interpretation of Scripture and the evidences of Christianity. On the latter subject he himself compiled | converts-an elderly gentleman, with stiff a work at this period, which was published Scotch manners, powdered hair and pigtail, in 1816, and has had some popularity in and an English Bible in his hand, striving, Scotland. In addition to these private by the aid of an interpreter, to gain the labours, he conducted public worship on attention of a set of lively young FrenchSundays in a chapel which he built close men whom he could not even address in to his own residence, where he expounded their own language-who would suppose Scripture to the neighbouring peasants. that such an attempt would have had any His doctrine proved so palatable as to issue, save to provoke mockery and deridraw from the adjacent churches a consi- sion? Yet such is the persuasive influence derable proportion of their congregations. A of earnest zeal, so great is the convincing Moderate minister in the vicinity asked one power of personal holiness, that in a few of his truant sheep what there was in Mr. months the foreign teacher was surrounded Haldane's preaching that, took away so with a crowd of attached converts, who many people to hear him. Deed, Sir,' continue the disciples of his doctrine to the replied the sturdy Scot, I'm thinking it's present hour, and gratefully look up to him just the contrary to your preaching.' as their father in the faith. Mr. After six years spent in this way, Haldane's energetic spirit began to tire of repose; and in 1816, the continent being once more open to Englishmen, he started upon a missionary tour in Europe. His first object was to propagate his views of the Gospel among the Roman Catholics of France; but when he reached Paris, he found, to his surprise, that the French Protestants themselves were farther from Christianity than their Catholic brethren. Even their pastors were either Deists or Socinians; and the seats of French Protestant theology, Geneva and Montauban, were the seminaries of infidelity. This intelligence caused an alteration in his plans; he resolved to attempt the conversion not of the Catholics, but of the Protestants. And in order to do this more effectually, he would establish himself at the fountain-head, whence whatever influence he might gain would necessarily diffuse itself far and wide. Acting on this plan, he first took up his residence at Geneva, and at once commenced a crusade against the Socinian professors of theology at that university. It was a singular coincidence that, after his long warfare with the Moderates' of Scotland, he should now be engaged in a similar struggle with the 'Moderates' of Geneva, defending in either case the traditional theology of Knox and Calvin against their degenerate representatives. His present undertaking, however, would have seemed to every one far less likely to succeed than his former efforts; indeed, the very conception of it must have struck the world at first sight as Quixotic, when we take into account the character and aspect of the man, and the nature of those youthful students of theology whom he sought to rescue from the toils of their heterodox teachers. If we picture him to ourselves as he is described by some of his He commenced operations by inviting. all the students who were so disposed, to discuss matters of religion with him in his apartments. Voilà le berceau de la seconde réformation de Genève;' exclaimed the celebrated Merle d'Aubigné, not long ago, pointing to the house in which Mr. Haldane had lodged. Here, in a saloon upon the ground-floor, were placed seats for about thirty students, who sat round a long table, with good store of Bibles in the centre. Curiosity attracted an audience at first; the remarkable character of the man, and the unmistakable depth of his piety, so strongly contrasting with the lazy irreligion of their professional instructors, riveted their attention and won their hearts. The following is a description of the scene by Mr. F. Monod, then a student, now, like his more celebrated brother, a distinguished preacher among the French Protestants: sented to my mind's eye Mr. Haldane's tall and here. How readest thou? There it stands What under our pastoral care; and such feelings were | braced his narrow system of traditional new to all of us.'-pp. 402, 403. Calvinism as a complete interpretation of God's revelation to man. It was a most happy circumstance that His success may well have filled him Mr. Haldane chose Geneva instead of Ger- with astonishment and thankfulness. The many for the field of his battle against Pro- students thronged to hear him, in spite of testant infidelity. Had he challenged all the vehement opposition of their tutors, comers to Berlin or Tübingen, it may be who vainly attempted to withdraw them feared that he would have encountered from the seducing influence of this Momier champions far more deeply conversant with Anglais.' The professor of theology, M. the language of Scripture than himself. Chenevière, an ardent disciple of Socinus, But the Socinian professors of Geneva were attempted to awe them into obedience, by shallow and flippant sciolists, as utterly un- pacing backwards and forwards under the acquainted with scriptural exegesis as Mr. trees of the boulevards, in front of Mr. Haldane himself, and destitute of that Haldane's door, at the hour of meeting, and knowledge of the vernacular Bible which noting down the names of those who enhe so eminently possessed. Consequently tered. But such opposition only added a he had not merely the moral advantage zest to the pleasure of their new pursuit, over them of zeal over sloth, and piety by enlisting on its side the juvenile love of over irreligion, but likewise an intellectual independence. The final result was, that superiority, inasmuch as he had studied the Mr. Haldane's views of religion were emsubject in dispute earnestly and honestly, braced by the ablest of the theological stuwhile they had neglected the study of it dents, some of whom have since attained a altogether. European reputation. The best known are. Merle d'Aubigné, who, at the time of Mr. Haldane's arrival, was president of a Socinian association, Gonthier, Monod, and Malan, the last of whom, soon after Mr. Haldane's departure, was deprived of his ministerial and academic offices by the ecclesiastical authorities of the canton, as a punishment for preaching the divinity of our Lord; an act of persecution which greatly strengthened the party it was designed to intimidate. Their careless indolence may be appreciated by the following statement of Mr. Monod: During the four years I attended the theological teachers of Geneva, I did not, as part of iny studies, read one single chapter of the word of God, except a few Psalms and chapters exclusively with a view to learning Hebrew; and I did not receive one single lesson of exegesis of the Old or New Testaments.'-p. 401. With young men of candid minds, thus These striking results were effected by wholly ignorant of Scripture, Mr. Haldane Mr. Haldane's labours at Geneva in a single had an easy task. They had been year. At the end of that time he believed trained in the shallowest school of Socini- his work there to be accomplished, and proanism-a school which professed to ac- ceeded to Montauban, the chief seminary knowledge the authority of the New Tes- in France for the education of Protestaut tament, and explained away its plainest pastors. Here he spent two years, but teaching by the most palpable evasions. It without the same remarkable success which was not difficult to expose their sophistries, had attended his Swiss mission. Meanor to show that a theology which denied while, he had left behind him, at Geneva, a the divinity of our Lord, the influences of successor, who carried on his crusade the Holy Spirit, and the corruption of man, against the unfortunate divinity-professors was very different from the theology of the with still keener relish. This was no other Apostles. It is true that if Mr. Haldane's than the now celebrated Mr. Henry Drumhearers had been more conversant with the mond, concerning whose early life and adoriginal of that English Bible upon which ventures there are some curious anecdotes he lectured, they might in their turn have in the work before us. We give the folproved that the dogmas of the Westminster lowing account of his arrival at Geneva, Assembly, which he taught them as di- party because it derives an interest from vine, were not much nearer to the views of him who is the subject of it, partly because St. Paul than those of the Genevese pro- it amusingly illustrates some peculiarities fessors. But their ignorance disqualified of the author of this biography. them for any such critical examination of his assertions, and his affectionate zeal and fervent exhortations carried them along wheresoever he led. Thus they saw Scripture only through his spectacles, and em 'The occasion of Mr. Drummond's arrival at Geneva had in it something providential. Early satiated with the empty frivolities of the fashionable world, and pressed by the address of |