Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 8.djvu/327

Rh not disturb society, either with warnings of its apostasy or a summons to repentance. Such was especially the state of the pastors of the canton, the theological schools, and the students in training for the ministry; and although a very few suspected occasionally that they were in the wrong, and that there was some better way which they had missed, there was neither friend to encourage nor teacher to direct them in their inquiries. But, on the entrance of Robert Haldane, a change commenced in Geneva. He received a few of the students at his hotel, to whom he expounded the Scriptures; the numbers of inquirers grew and multiplied, and light increased among those who diligently sought it. "In a very short time," writes the biographar of one of this band, "a striking revival, effected by his means, was manifested in the school of theology. Around the venerable Haldane, their true professor, there gathered habitually more than twenty pupils of that auditory, converted by the instructions of that blessed Word, which they began immediately to distribute at Geneva, or, at a later period, to carry to neighbouring countries; and amongst the latter may be named Henri Pyt, JeanGuillaume Gonthier, and Charles Rieu, who died pastor at Frederica, in Denmark. It was on Thursday, the 6th of February, 1817, that Mr. Haldane undertook to read and explain to them the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans. 'He knew the Scriptures,' says Pyt, 'like a Christian who has had for his Master the same Holy Spirit by whom they were dictated.' He spoke in English; first, M. Rieu, then M. Fred. Monod, of Paris, or M. James, of Breda, interpreted. Never, we venture to say, since the days of Francis Turretine and Benedict Pictet, of holy and happy memory never had any doctor expounded the whole counsel of God with such purity, force, and fulness; never had so bright a luminary shone in the city of Calvin." These students, however, numerous as they ultimately became, did not constitute the whole of his audience. "Besides those who attended regularly," Haldane himself writes, "some, who did not wish to appear with the students, came at different hours; and in conversing with them at those times, or after finishing the public course at eight o'clock, I was often engaged till near midnight. Others of the inhabitants of Geneva, unconnected with the schools of learning, and of both sexes, occasionally visited me in the afternoon respecting the gospel." No such movement has ever occurred without opposition; and the Genevese pastors, after vainly attempting to refute the new preacher, endeavoured to procure his banishment from the canton; and, on the refusal of their free republican government, they proposed to cite him before their spiritual court, as a teacher of error and perverter of their students. But all that they could do was to frame new acts, which every student was required to sign before being licensed to preach; acts particularly framed against the doctrines of the Godhead of the Saviour, original sin, grace and effectual calling, and predestination. It was the blundering policy of persecutors, who endeavour to silence, without having power and authority to destroy. The sword, wielded by such feeble hands, was but the touch of a spur to accelerate the movement.

Having finished the good work at Geneva, and kindled a flame that was not to be extinguished, Mr. Haldane wisely resolved to retire, and transfer his labours to some other quarter. Montauban was selected as his next field, which he reached in July, 1817. Here he published, in French, his prelections to the students of Geneva, in two volumes, under the title of a "Commentary on the Romans." Although the centre of education for the Protestants of the Reformed Church in France, Montauban was too like the parent city of Ge-