sudden storms for which the Mediterranean has been famed from the day when the Apostle Paul was caught in the euroclydon. In this instance it was the means of sending Mr. H. Drummond to Geneva. The ship took refuge in the port of Genoa before nightfall, and Lady Harriet begged with tears that they might land. At Genoa Mr. Drummond accidentally heard of Mr. Haldane's doings, and the commotion at Geneva. His resolution was taken. He came to Geneva,

our Lord to the rich young man, he had first From his foreign warfare Mr. Haldane broken up his hunting establishment, and final- returned triumphant to Scotland, but not ly sold his magnificent house and beautiful es- to repose. The excitement of theological tate of the Grange in Hampshire. His plans of controversy had gradually become necesusefulness were, however, indistinct, and he was going with Lady Harriet to visit the Holy sary to him, and he now took the earliest Land. As the nephew of the First Lord of the opportunity of plunging into a new contest, Admiralty, he had been accommodated with a which lasted for the twelve following passage on board the Tagus frigate, whose cap-years. This time it was not against infitain was the now well-known Admiral Deans dels or Socinians that he made his onDundas, whose pious mother (a sister of the late slaught, but against his own familiar friends Lord Amesbury) was a frequent hearer of Mr. J. and co-religionists. The occasion of the Haldane. Standing on deck beside the captain, just as they were going to dinner, Mr. strife was as follows. The Bible Society, Drummond's quick eye perceived at a distance a which was founded at the beginning of ripple on the waters. He remarked it to Cap- the century for the circulation of the tain Dundas, when in an instant orders were Scriptures, was instituted on the most comgiven to take in sail and trim the ship. The prehensive principles, and admitted all ripple indicated the approach of one of those sects of Christians among its members. It had adopted a fundamental rule, forbidding the circulation of any notes or other extraneous matter in addition to the Bible itself. But, in order to enable it to circulate the Scriptures among the Roman Catholics, it had printed the Apocrypha in several of its editions, the apocryphal books being reckoned canonical by the Church of Rome. This conciliatory practice, however, was and introduced himself to Mr. Haldane two days before he left the city. Mr. Drummond's contrary to the strict letter of its law, and great wealth and boundless liberality made him was highly offensive to Mr. Haldane; the to the persecuted ministers a wall of defence more so, because it enabled the servants against the bigoted zeal of the Consistory. Tak- of the Beast' (so he called the Romanists) ing up his abode at the beautiful hotel of Seche- to join the Society, which at that time ron, near the lake, but outside the walls of the reckoned even Roman Catholic priests town, his hospitable apartments were open to all He, therefore, orgawho chose to visit him. The Company [i. e. the among its members. Academical Council] had hoped that, in getting nized a fierce agitation against the publicarid of Mr. Haldane, they were going to enjoy an tion of the Apocrypha; his war-cry being easy victory. But the gallant zeal, the untiring the sin of adulterating the Word of God.' energy, the splendid generosity of Mr. Drum- His vehement invectives were answered by mond, filled them with despair. They appoint- the leaders and friends of the Bible Socieed a deputation to go to Secheron and remonstrate, This deputation, consisting of ty, against whom he rained a storm of Messieurs Pictet and Chenevière, found Mr. pamphlets in reply. His opponents numDrummond in the garden, in conversation with bered among them many of the chiefs of a friend. M. Chenevière, with a manner more the Evangelical' party, some of whom resembling that of a dancing-master than a pro- had hitherto been his chosen brethren in fessor of divinity, pompously demanded if he the faith. On the other hand, his chief ally were going to teach the same doctrines as Mr. was a Scotch divine of the name of ThompHaldane. Mr. Drummond, with consummate son, with whom he had formerly been enaddress, baffled the impertinent inquirer, by requesting an exposition of Mr. Haldane's doc-gaged in pamphleteering hostilities. trines. In the sequel, the deputation returned advent of the latter to the fray is described A violent letter of remonstrance with truly epic grandeur by Mr. Haldane's was inet by a reply, which added fuel to the biographer as follows:flame. In a Geneva newspaper, it is described as a letter in which Mr. Drummond dared to treat the venerable company as heretics and blasphemers. Mr. Drummond was summoned to appear before the Council of State; and after an interview, intended to intimidate, in which he was required to withdraw his letter, he removed his quarters from Secheron into the French territory, where, at a villa in sight of the irate Company and their supporters, he remained at a time when his countenance and support were of the greatest consequence to the Christians Alas for human greatness! We fear that suffering under their Arian persecutors.'-p. 428. this colossal mind,' this gigantic intel

in a rage.

The

'It was at this crisis that the Rev. Dr. Andrew Thompson for the first time appeared in the field, in a cause worthy of all the energies of his colossal mind. His gigantic intellect, his unflinching courage, his elastic spirits, his buoyant humour, his indomitable industry, his vigorous pen, his powerful eloquence, and his wonderful capacity for business, entitled him to rank among the first men of his age.'-p. 495.

lect,' has long been forgotten by our readers south of the Tweed. And yet we now find that he was among the first men of his age.' Truly saith the poet,

'The world knows nothing of its greatest men.'

Animated by the support of this doughty champion, Mr. Haldane dealt redoubled blows against the foe, and raised a perfect tempest in the religious world by the fury of his assault. The pertinacity of his temper and the fluency of his pen may be estimated from the fact that he published no less than fifteen separate pamphlets upon this controversy alone. The magnitude of its dimensions in his eyes, and the keenness with which he snuffed the battle from afar, may be seen by the following characteristic letter to one of his support

ers:

Wilson (now the Bishop of Calcutta), and even Simeon of Cambridge. Such were the lengths to which he was carried by the intemperate eagerness of his zeal.

He be

Yet we must not forget that, with all *this bitterness, there was no mixture of personal malignity. He had really persuaded himself that it was an awful sin to print the Apocrypha under the same covers with the Bible. Nay, he believed that if, as a member of the Bible Society, he failed to protest against this sin, he would incur the curse pronounced against those who add anything to the word of God. And the intensity of his feelings was much increased, when, in the progress of the controversy, questions were mooted touching the nature of the inspiration and the authority of the Canon. On the former point especially he was a most superstitious alarmist. He had a microscopic eye for the slightest deviations from the narrow path prescribed by 'I trust that Mr. White will not faint in this his idolatry of the letter. He trembled business, and become weary of well-doing. Re- at every investigation which seemed to mind him of the magnitude of the question, threaten the palladium of his faith, the which refers to the purity of the Divine Word, doctrine of verbal inspiration.' and the expulsion of that dreadful abomination the Apocrypha a question which now shakes lieved the inspired writers to have done all Europe, and which was never before agitated nothing more than hold the pen with which on its true merits, or to such an extent. Never the finger of God wrote every word of in his life, it is probable, will he have such Scripture. Hence an acknowledgment of another opportunity of glorifying God. So far the smallest discrepancy in chronology, or from sinking under the persecution and evil- the slightest variation in narrative, seemed speaking which he has to encounter, he should take fresh courage from them, like the apostle to him equivalent to the denial of revelation Paul, and, like him, fight the good fight of faith. and the destruction of Christianity. In Let him by no means give up attending the com- short; he was one of those who, in the words mittee, but watch more earnestly and sedulously of Bishop Hall, 'make every point of heralthan ever. Let all of us remember the words dry in the sacred genealogies matter of of God, and not incur the rebuke, If thou faint no less than life and death to the soul.' in the day of adversity, thy strength is small: The only parallel we have ever met which if thou hast run with the footmen and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with fully illustrates his views on this question horses? Most gladly, then, let him rejoice was supplied by the teacher of a school, in these tribulations, Be not afraid of their who, whenever a pupil misplaced a syllable faces, for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith in a text of Scripture, or omitted the word Jehovah. Could the enemy desire anything bet- Selah in saying a Psalm, used to compel ter than that the servants of God should flee the offender to recite the anathema in Rev. from their post like Jonah, and succumb in such xxii. 18, 19, beginning, If any man shall a-struggle -p. 509. take away from the words of the book.' Mr. Haldane's ignorance of the original languages of Scripture and of the researches him to hold a theory which, by all men of modern criticism, rendered it possible for even moderately acquainted with such sub

As we read the above, might we not fancy that it was written by Balfour of Burley as a testimony against the Prelatists, or by David Deans as a screed anent Erastianism? In truth, Mr. Haldane was a kind of mean proportional between those jects, is now abandoned as untenable. And two worthies, uniting the agricultural pur- his presumption in putting forth what his the same ignorance explains and excuses suits of the latter with the martial propen-biographer calls a systematic treatise' on sities of the former. Among those whom the Inspiration of the Scriptures.' Inhe here reckons as the enemies of God were deed, this was less astounding than his included such as Owen and Brandram (the secretaries of the Bible Society), Daniel previous exploit in publishing a voluminous and elaborate Commentary on the Romans,' while utterly unacquainted both with Greek and with exegesis. We are

Taylor's Philip van Artevelde.'

any

told, however, by way of palliation, that | under which it was formed. We must he got all that required scholarship done regard him as faithfully endeavouring, for him by some assistants whom he em- amid the complications of modern life, to ployed. carry out the stern creed of a Scottish His Apocryphal agitation was in great Covenanter. He was led to assail the measure successful, at least so far as to Bible Society and anathematise the Apocompel the Bible Society to desist from crypha by the same conscientious intolefurther adulteration of the Scriptures;'rance which would, in an earlier generation, but he did not consider that a sufficient have led him to hang papists and burn acknowledgment was made of the Society's witches. To do him justice, we must look previous transgressions, and finally re- at his life through the medium in which he nounced connexion with it. By the time himself regarded it. If we do this we shall that this wearisome controversy had worn see in him a noble type of strict adherence itself out, he was already advanced in age. to duty, united to the personal devoutness The repose of his remaining years was only of one who had his conversation in heaven. broken by a dropping fire of occasional He lived by faith, and overcame the world. pamphlets against societies or individuals His life was a perpetual rebuke to the whom he detected in any right-hand trans- sordid spirit of our age, free from its paltry gression or left-hand deflection. motives, its low aims, its grovelling ambition. And his faults, such as they were, sprang not from a baseness of the soul, but from a weakness of the understanding.

At length the time came when the energies of his vigorous constitution were exhausted, and he sank into a state of languor, which in a few months ended fatally. We have not left ourselves much space The following death-bed scene occurred on for an account of the other hero of this the day when his doctor had announced to work, James Haldane, the younger brohim his hopelessness of recovery. It is a ther of Robert. But there is the less need striking example of that system of interpre- to enlarge upon his career, because he was tation so characteristic of his school, which in almost every point a facsimile of his wrests the plainest texts into forced accord- elder brother, only with less force of ance with a theory of rigid and unbending character. dogmatism :

"He had told no, one of the doctor's announcement, and he did not notice it now; but his manner was grave, and his countenance evinced the intensity of his self-searching meditations. He began at once:-"I have been thinking of our Lord's words to his disciples, He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me; and the parallel passage, Rev. iii. 20 (which he also repeated). Now, I have been asking myself what must my answer be, if tried by this test. Have I kept his commandments? Have I kept his sayings?" And with

emphasis he exclaimed, "I bless the Lord that through His grace, I can say Yes; that I have his commandments, and have kept them." He explained that the commandment is to believe in Jesus Christ; and the Lord had been pleased to give him grace to believe."-p. 582.

Yet, whatever we may think of his prealses, no Christian will doubt the justice of his conclusion. His life had been devoted to the cause of God to the best of his ability, and according to the measure of his knowledge; and his death might well be peaceful, for he fell asleep in Christ. The last words he was heard to utter were several times repeated at intervals:- For ever with the Lord'-'for ever'-'for

ever.'

In estimating his religious character, we must not forget the national influences

His early life was spent in the merchant service of the East India Company, which he entered as a midshipman at sixteen, and gradually rose to be captain of an Indiaman, as his father and great-uncle had been before him. This circumstance evidently not a little troubles his son, the author of the work before us, who exhibits great alarm lest his readers should think such an employment derogatory to the aristocratic pretensions of his heroes. He, therefore, takes pains to inform us how far superior the East India merchant-service was in those days to its present state. Many of the captains,' he says, were the younger sons of the nobility; some of them were baronets; most of them were either connected with the landed aristocracy or the great merchants, and frequently indulged in expensive habits, which rendered them rather objects of jealousy to the juniors in the Royal Navy' (p. 44). And again, It was then unusual for an officer of any East India ship to travel with less than four horses' (p. 49).

James Haldane made several voyages to the East Indies, and showed himself a bold and skilful seaman. Before he left the service, he had an opportunity of proving his coolness and courage on a remarkable occasion, when he quelled the munity of the Dutton Indiaman at Spithead, in 1794.

The following account of this occurrence is off the iron bars from the doors, whilst the other given by his biographer :

had a shovel full of live coals ready to throw in. Capt. Haldane, instantly putting a pistol to the breast of the man with the iron bar, told him that if he stirred he was a dead man. Calling at the same time for the irons of the ship, as if displaced first on this man, and then on the other. obedience were out of the question, he saw them The rest of the ringleaders were also secured, when the crew, finding that they were overPowered, and receiving the assurance that none should be removed that night, became quiet, and the Captain returned to the Melville Castle. Next day the chief mutineers were put on board the Regulus, and the rest of the crew went to their duty peaceably.'-pp. 62-64.

"In paying off certain men at Portsmouth from the Dutton, such a spirit was evinced as induced the captain to apply for assistance to H. M. ship the Regulus. The men complained that, owing to their detention, their stores were exhausted, and they demanded an additional advance of pay. It was refused, and hence the mutiny. On the evening of the 19th March, Lieutenant Lucas of the Regulus, with his boat's crew, came on board to demand four of the ringleaders, when the greatest part of the crew hastily got up the round shot on deck, threatening they would sink the first boat that came alongside. The crew emboldened, and increasing in fury, the Lieutenant thought it prudent to leave the ship, as did also the captain, under Soon after this event, Mr. Haldane rethe impression that their absence might assist in tired from his profession into private life, restoring peace and quietness. The crew, how- having shortly before married. He lived at ever, becoming outrageous, were going to hoist first chiefly in his brother's house, and it out the boats. The Carnatic, Indiaman, hearing was at this period that both the brothers the confusion, fired several alarm-guns, and armed boats from the other ships were now ad- experienced that decided change in their vancing. By this time, the crew of the Dutton, religious principles of which we have prebeing in a most serious state of mutiny, had viously spoken. That this change was no begun to arm themselves with shot, iron bars, mere brain-sick fancy or sentimental delu&c., and at last made a determined attack on the sion is sufficiently proved by its permanence quarter-deck. The officers, having lost their and its fruits. Thenceforward they gave command, were firing pistol-shots overhead, up their former habits and pursuits, and rewhen one seaman, getting over the booms, re-nounced in great measure their social station ceived a wound, of which he died six days

and domestic comforts, in order to devote themselves to promoting by fifty years of labour the spiritual good of others. And the moving spring and original cause of all this energy they derived from that change of feeling which they deemed to have been their conversion to God.

'It has been said the mutineers threatened to carry the ship into a French port. But at this noment far more serious apprehension was felt lest the men should gain access to the powdermagazine, and madly end the strife by their own death, and that of all on board. One of the two medical men had serious thoughts of throwing himself into the water to escape the risk. It We have already seen that both brothers was at this critical moment that Capt. Haldane began their religious career by itinerating of the Melville Castle appeared at the side of the through Scotland as home missionaries. vessel. His approach was the signal for renewed James Haldane's first tour was in 1797, and angry tumults-the shouts of the officers, when he travelled through the west of "Come on board, come on board!" were Scotland, with a view to establish Sundaydrowned by the cries of the mutineers, "Keep schools and distribute tracts. At first he off, or we'll sink you !" The scene was appalling; had no intention of undertaking regular and to venture into the midst of the angry crew seemed an act of daring almost amounting to ministerial duties; but the popularity of rashness. Ordering his men to veer round by the occasional addresses which he delivered the stern, in a few moments Capt. Haldane was was so great, as to induce him ultimately on the quarter-deck. His first object was to re- to devote his life to the work of preaching. store to the officers composure and presence of In 1799 he was ordained at Edinburgh as mind. He peremptorily refused to head an im- pastor of a congregation of seceders from mediate attack on the mutineers, but very calmly the Kirk, which assembled in the 'taberreasoning with the men, sword in hand, telling nacle' in that city; and there he continued them that they had no business there, and asking them what they hoped to effect in the presence to officiate for above fifty years. His laof twenty sail of the line, the quarter-deck was bours during all that time were entirely soon cleared. But observing there was still gratuitous, his private fortune enabling him much confusion, and inquiring where the chief to dispense with any salary. For some danger lay, he was down immediately at the very point of alarm. Two of the crew, intoxicated with spirits, and more hardy than the rest, were at the door of the powder-magazine, threatening with horrid oaths, that whatever it should prove, heaven or hell, they would blow up the ship. One of them was in the act of wrenching

years, however, he continued to itinerate through Scotland as a field-preacher in the summer months. In this capacity he had an opportunity of making himself thoroughly acquainted with the religious necessities of his country, and witnessed many curious

scenes. The following is an interesting illustration of the primitive simplicity of Highland manners fifty years ago :

'On a sacramental occasion he had been present in a parish church where there was a pause, and none of the people seemed disposed to approach the communion tables. On a sudden he heard the crack of sticks, and looking round, saw one descend on the bald head of a highlander behind him. It was the ruling elders driving the poor people forward to the tables, much in the same manner as they were accustomed to pen their cattle in the market.'-p. 260.

The field-preaching of the Messrs. Haldane and their associates at first excited a good deal of local opposition from magistrates and clergy, which the sailor-parson encountered and overcame with nautical boldness and resolution. Once, while his attendant was announcing the intended field-preaching to the congregation as they were going out of church, he was interrupted by the minister of the parish, in a style savouring rather of Ireland than of Scotland. Standing with a heavy loaded whip in his hand, the reverend gentleman exclaimed, If you repeat that notice, with one stroke of my whip I'll send you into the eternal world!' On another occasion, Mr. Haldane and his colleague were actually arrested by a magistrate's warrant, and sent twenty miles over the country under a guard of soldiers, to the sheriff of Argyll.

The result of this failure was to establish the lawfulness of field-preaching, and no further legal opposition was made to the proceedings of our itinerant. He spent the half century which followed in the unva ried routine of his pastoral duties, and the even tenour of his useful life was but little disturbed by the storms which raged around him. The walls of his tabernacle were shaken not by assault from without, but by revolt within. The little church soon became the schism of a schism. It was plunged into dissension by such momentous questions as, whether the mutual exhortation of the brethren by means of public speaking were or were not a binding duty; whether a plurality of elders were or were not imperative; whether collections should be made from all the congregation, or from the communicants alone; whether the Lord's Supper should be observed twice a year, once a month, or once a week; whether it was lawful for Baptists and Padobaptists to communicate together. On some of these points of controversy a rupture took place, and the tabernacle was split in twain. But James Haldane peacefully continued his ministrations to a dimi nished flock, and the true devotedness of his character and the zeal of his preaching gave him through life a great and constantly increasing influence over his fellow-townsmen.

In theological opinions and ecclesiastical controversies he ranged himself uniformly on the side of his elder brother, between "To the sheriff they were very unwelcome whom and himself a warm and unbroken visitors. He was an old man, and having been apprised of their coming, was by no means dis- affection existed through life, cemented posed to commit himself to the violent proceed- not merely by the cadem velle atque eadem ings of the anti-preaching chiefs. He put seve-nolle, but by the idem sentire de civitate Dei. ral questions, which were satisfactorily answered; They took sweet counsel together, and and after consulting with a gentleman who sat walked in the house of God as friends. with him as his adviser, he said, "But have you Such perfect intellectual and moral hartaken the oaths to Government?" They replied

that they had not, but that they were most mony between two brothers, engaged for willing to do so. The sheriff said that he had fifty years in the same pursuits, and living not a copy of the oaths, and that they must in constant contact, is so rare and beautitherefore go to Inverary for the purpose. A ful a spectacle, that it might well call forth merchant from Glasgow who had joined the itis the admiring sympathy of all who knew nerants, quoted the words of the Toleration Act, them. There they are,' exclaimed their to show that, if required to take the oaths, they friend Mr. Murray, as he saw them walking were to be administered before the nearest magistrate. "Now (said Mr. J. Haldane) you are the two brothers that have always dwelt together in their old age, 'There they are! the nearest magistrate. We are peaceable, loyal subjects, transgressing no law, and prepared to together in unity! The younger survived do all the law requires. But to Inverary we the elder eight years, and died at the age will not go except as your prisoners, and on of eighty, in 1851. your responsibility." The sheriff had wished We turn with reluctance from the lives to make the affair a drawn battle, and to screen of these high-minded and venerable men to the magistrates from blame. But Mr. J. H. notice the contrast to their unworldly felt the importance of avoiding all compromise, and of bringing the question to issue. The sheriff spirit exhibited by the tone of their biowas therefore obliged to give way; and, after grapher. Few things are more painful to once more consulting with his friend, briefly a serious mind than to observe the tendency said, "Gentlemen, you are at liberty."-p. 264. so often exhibited by every type of earnest

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