Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 8.djvu/317

Rh tions, were all severally and keenly contested as matters of religious, and therefore of infinite importance. To these, also, was added the question of Psedo-baptism, in which Mr. James Haldane himself was personally and deeply interested. He had been anxiously studying the subject for several years, and after some time he announced to his flock, that "although his mind was not made up to become himself a Baptist, yet that at present he could not conscientiously baptize children." His mind was made up at last: he was baptized; but still his wish was that the difference of opinion should be no ground of disunion between Baptists and Psedobaptists. This, however, was too much to expect from any sect or class of Christians in the present state of human nature, and accordingly a disruption ensued in his congregation, of whom nearly two-thirds went away, some to the Establishment, and others to the two tabernacles in College Street and Niddry Street. By this change, also, the two Haldanes ceased to be the leaders of a sect which their labours had originated in Scotland, and their resources hitherto supported. As for James, he now ministered to a very limited congregation, and with diminished popularity, but his elevated generous heart could endure the change as far as it only affected himself. He saw that the good which he had sought to accomplish was in progress under other agencies ; and he was content to be nothing, and less than nothing, if the gospel itself should become all in all.

In this way the days and y ears of James Haldane's life went onward. He regularly officiated to his own Edinburgh congregation, preached occasionally in the open air in its neighbourhood, and diversified his duties by journeys of similar usefulness to greater distances. He published several tracts upon the most important religious doctrines, which were widely circulated, and attended, it is believed, with much usefulness., He was also engaged as a controversialist, in which capacity he published a "Refutation of the Heretical Doctrine promulgated by the Rev. Edward Irving, respecting the Person and Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ ;" and when Mr. H. Drummond came to the rescue of his pastor, with his " Candid Examination of the Controversy between Messrs. Irving, Andrew Thomson, and James Haldane," the last replied with a volume of 277 pages. But controversy was not his congenial element, and Dr. Johnson would have rejected him because he was not a good hater. " I see many evils," lie thus writes in a letter, " both at home and abroad, which I hope the Lord will correct ; but I do not see anything which I can do, unless it be to live near to God, and to preach his gospel where I am placed in the course of his providence." In 1831 he published " Observations on Universal Pardon, the Extent of the Atonement, and Personal Assurance of Salvation." The next important event that occurred in his course was the decease of his brother Robert, whose death-bed he attended, and whose triumphant end he witnessed; and it was during the closing hours of his life that the dying man spoke affectionately to his wife of the great benefit he had derived from the sermons and publications of his brother James, from which, he said, he had derived more solid edification than from any others. He also spoke with fond affection of the complete harmony of mind and purpose that had subsisted between them from the beginning. It seemed as if, in the course of nature, the death of James Haldane must speedily follow, for he was now seventy-four years old, and had already outlived many of his early associates. But his term was extended eight years longer, and they were years not of inert senility, but active diligent exertion. In 1842 he published a treatise entitled " Man's Responsibility ; the Nature