"It is almost awful," said the excellent Dr. Arnold, sitting above the delicious lake of Como (and I quote the passage here because it is the expression of thoughts and feelings that such a Christian as D'Aubigné must often have experienced in the presence of the loveliness of nature before his own door); "it is almost awful to look at the overwhelming beauty around me, and then think of moral evil. It seems as if heaven and hell, instead of being separated by a great gulf from one another, were absolutely on each other's confines, and indeed not far from every one of us. Might the sense of moral evil be as strong in me as my delight in external beauty, for in a deep sense of moral evil, more perhaps than in anything else, abides a saving knowledge of God! It is not so much to admire moral good; that we may do, and yet not be ourselves conformed to it; but if we really do abhor that which is evil, not the persons in whom evil resides, but the evil which dwelleth in them, and much more manifestly and certainly to our own knowledge in our own hearts-this is to have the feeling of God and of Christ, and to have our spirit in sympathy with the Spirit of God." CHAPTER VIII. DR. GAUSSEN-THE CHILDREN OF THE ORATOIRE-RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. DR. GAUSSEN, the able coadjutor of D'Aubigné, and author of the admirable work on Inspiration entitled Theopneustia, was pastor of the parish of Santigny, in the canton of Geneva, in the year 1815. It was about this time that he likewise became a Christian, and preached the way of salvation through faith in Christ crucified. In his teachings among his flock, Dr. Gaussen, becoming dissatisfied with the Catechism imposed for instruction by the National Church, principally because it had no acknowledgment of the great fundamental truths of the Gospel, laid it aside, and proceeded to teach the children and candidates for communion in his own way. For this he was DR. GAUSSEN OF GENEVA. 53 brought before the "Venerable Company of Pastors," and finally was by them censured, and suspended for a year from his right to sit in the Company. But Dr. Gaussen and his friends, D'Aubigné and others, nothing terrified by their adversaries, proceeded still farther. They framed the Evangelical Society of Geneva, took measures for the preaching of the Gospel in the city, and established, though in weakness and fear and in much trembling, yet in reliance upon God, the Evangelical Theological Seminary. Finding that all efforts and threatenings to prevent or stay their career were in vain, the Venerable Company proceeded, in 1831, to reject Mr. Gaussen from the functions of pastor of Santigny, and to interdict Messrs. Gaussen, Galland, and Merle, from all the functions of the pulpit in the churches and chapels of the Canton. What a spectacle was this! It recalls to mind the action of the Genevese Republic three hundred years before, in the banishment of Calvin and Farel from the city. The result has been happy in the highest degree Forced out of the National Church, these men have been made to feel what at first it is so difficult to be convinced of, that the church of Christ belongs to Christ, and not to any nation. They see that there is a new transfiguration, a new approximating step of glory for the Reformed Church in Europe, in which she shall become free in Christ-shall assume her true catholicity, her supremacy, her independence-becoming for ever and everywhere a church in the spirit, the truth, and the liberty of Christ. In Geneva the Church is in subjection. The people cannot choose their pastors-the pastors are compelled to receive every man to Christian communion as an indiscriminate right of citizenship. At a certain age, every young man comes into the Church by law, no matter how depraved, and declares in the most solemn manner that he believes, from the bottom of his heart, the dogmas in which his pastor has instructed him; that he will still hold to them, and renounce the world and its pomps. For entering the army, for becoming an apprentice, for obtaining any employ, the young man must take the communicant's oath. Have you been to the communion? is the test question -first and implacable. Hence, if a pastor should refuse the communion to a young libertine, the candidate and the whole family would regard it as the highest insult and injustice, debarring the young man from rights sacred to him as a citizen, shutting, indeed, the door of all civil advancement against him. To say nothing of piety, how can even morality itself be preserved in a Church in such degrading subjection to the civil power? Dr. Gaussen was appointed to the office of Professor of Systematic Theology in the New Evangelical School, and he also officiates as one of the pastors of the Church of the Oratoire, of which M. Pilet is the regular preacher. M. Pilet is distinguished for his gifts of eloquence and piety, and holds the office of Professor of Exegetical Theology, along with Professor La Harpe, the latter taking the department of the Old Testament, the former of the New. Every Lord's day, at eleven o'clock in the morning, after the sermon, there is in the Church of the Oratoire an exercise for the young, of which Dr. Gaussen has the special charge. It is a catechetical excrcise in which the children are instructed from the Scriptures, making the Bible their text-book and book of study. It was for the crime of substituting the Bible instead of the old catechism of the Company of Pastors, in his instruction of the children of his flock at Santigny, that Dr. Gaussen was first censured and finally deposed from that parochial charge. He has great power over the children, possessing the rare faculty of awakening and interesting the youthful mind, while at the same time his questions and illustrations are full of the richest instruction to those who are more advanced and learned in the things of Christ. Hence this exercise is attended by parents as well as children, and by strangers, who look on and listen with delight and profit at the understanding and answers of the little ones. It is a most interesting spectacle to see these youthful minds brought so actively into play, and enriched and disciplined by the acuteness, knowledge, and lively eloquence of the teacher. Dr. Gaussen seems a somewhat younger man than D'Aubigné, shorter of stature, with a quick and active eye and movement. His countenance is full of life, frankness, and DR. GAUSSEN OF GENEVA. 55 intelligence. There is a pleasing combination of energy and suavity in his manners, indicating perhaps the characteristics of his mind; for he is a man of learning in action, and of solid accomplishments gracefully employed. His style is admirable for its united richness and vivacity. There is the same interest and life in his conversation as in his writings, with the great charm of a simplicity and friendliness of character as open as the sun, and a most attractive warmth and enthusiasm of Christian thought and feeling. His mind kindles and glows, especially on the preciousness of the word of God, the advancing kindness of the Redeemer, and the nature of the enmity which the Church of Christ in Europe must now encounter. He speaks with the same deep earnestness as D'Aubigné of the great crisis which is so evidently hastening in Europe-the rapidly advancing battle and final trial between Rome and the Gospel. No one can tell what scenes are soon to arise; what events-it may be, alarming ones-are to be developed. Dr. Gaussen's residence is in a beautiful rural spot, not far outside the gates of the city, towards France, commanding a noble view of the Alps. During conversation in a walk thither, he spoke to me of his views of inspiration, as exhibited in his work on that subject. The professors seek to build up their pupils on the word of God, and to make them strong in that as their impregnable citadel, having no half-way in its divine authority. Next they would have them rooted and grounded in the doctrine of justification by faith. Dr. Gaussen told me that his high views of the word of God were powerfully sustained in his own mind by the manner in which our blessed Lord himself quotes and refers to the Old Testament. It is the word of God and not man; it is God's own words speaking to the soul; by which, by every word, man shall and not a word shall be broken. They have an authori e power and life, not weakened by any mixture of human ɔrity or human opinion and doubt; and they are appealed such a manner as could not consist with any thing less than the highest, fullest, direct, divine inspiration. He spoke of the necessity of a separation of the Church from the State, in order to the freedom and purity of the Church of Geneva, and remarked that his own views on this subject accorded with those of D'Aubigné. He mentioned what to me was a startling fact, that out of forty pastors in the National Church, only three were regarded as evangelical; hence the deep anxiety which men of God entertain in regard to the future welfare of the city and canton, when they see how fast in numbers Rome steals upon them, while there are few to resist her encroachments, and while the Church is so allied with and dependent on the State, that a majority of political voters would carry the whole establishment, without any reserve or tolerance, over to the Pope. There is no antidote to the evil but in making the Church independent. The great Reformation of the nineteenth century, in his own opinion, as well as D'Aubigné's, will be the mutual independence of the State and the Church. Then, if not before, will the great voice be heard, Babylon is fallen ! But before this, Dr. Gaussen inclines to the opinion that God will yet once more scourge with the rod, in the resurrection of Romanism, those kingdoms that, ungrateful for the mercies of the Gospel, and spurning the priceless gift of religious liberty, have of late despised the Reformation, and begun to render something of their old homage to the Man of Sin, falling on the neck of the grim old tyrant even with tears and kisses. What a disgraceful spectacle! "Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour : Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, So didst thou trav 1 on life's common way, The constitution of Geneva is such, that by its provisions there is no liberty of instruction or congregation but only by authority of the Council of State. The ninth and tenth arti |