offensive, becomes appropriate and pleasing. Great and precious is this power, and great is doubtless the amount of unrevealed good, which Dr. Malan has thus accomplished in the course of his life. The stream of his conversation through the world has been like the streams from his native mountains running through the vales, and then being the fullest and the sweetest, when all common rivers are the lowest. Before I saw Dr. Malan, I had heard him described by Christian friends, who had met him in England. An account was given me of an evening spent in his presence in Edinburgh, which might bring to mind the familiar lines of Cowper.

"When one that holds communion with the skies
Has filled his urn where those pure waters rise,
And once more mingles with us meaner things,
'Tis e'en as if an angel shook his wings.
Immortal fragrance fills the circuit wide,
That tells us whence his treasures are supplied.
So when a ship well freighted with the stores
The sun matures on India's spicy shores
Has dropped her anchor, and her canvass furled,
In some safe haven of our western world,
'Twere vain inquiry to what port she went,

The gale informs us, laden with the scent."

On this occasion a most interesting instance of conversion was said to have occurred through the instrumentality of Dr. Malan. A licentiate of the church of Scotland was present, of whom Dr. Malan had inquired personally, if he possessed the love of Christ. The young gentleman opposed the Doctor's views with great heat and argument, and at length begged of him to go into a private room, that they might converse together with more freedom. When they had shut the door, the licentiate proposed prayer. "No," said Dr. Malan, "I will not pray with you, for I am convinced that you know not the love of Christ; but I will pray for you ;" and they knelt in prayer. The argument was then continued for a great length, but such was the effect of Dr. Malan's address, that when they returned to the company the licentiate was in great agitation, and did not conceal his excitement. When he went to his lodgings, instead of retiring to bed,

he sat down to write a refutation of Dr. Malan's views, with a clearness and power of argument, as he thought, such as he could not command in conversation, and he continued writing till four o'clock in the morning. Then, when he rose and looked at his manuscripts, and ran over his train of reasoning, a sudden flash of conviction, a light like that which shone on the mind of Paul in his way to Damascus, poured upon him, that he had been fighting against God, and was indeed, a guilty, wretched, perishing sinner. He threw himself upon his knees, implored forgiveness through the blood of Christ, and that very hour obtained peace in his Redeemer. When he arose, and looked at his watch, he found that it wanted but little of the time when Dr. Malan was to take his departure in the morning's coach. He hurried away, and finding him at the door of his house, just ready to set out, embraced him as his spiritual father, declaring that he had never known Christ till that morning. That same individual I was told is now a devoted minister of the Lord Jesus in the city of Glasgow.

From all that I knew of Dr. Malan during my delightful residence in Geneva, I could easily credit this narration. In the bosom of his own family, he shines the man of God; delightful is that communion. I shall never forget the sweet Sabbath evenings passed there. A charm rested upon the conversation, an atmosphere as sacred as the Sabbath day's twilight. At tea a text of Scripture had been always written for each member of the family, as well as for the Christian friends who might be present, and was placed beneath the plate, to be read by each in his turn, eliciting some appropriate remark from the venerable pastor and father. The evening worship was performed with hymns which Dr. Malan had written, to melodies which he had himself composed, sung by the voices of his daughters, with the accompaniment of instrumental music. It would have been difficult anywhere to have witnessed a lovelier picture of a Christian family. In his personal conversation, in his remarks upon the Scriptures, and in the nearness and tender breathing of his intercourse with God, as he led us to the throne of grace, he made us feel as if the atmosphere of a brighter world had de scended around us.

Were you to be introduced to Dr. Malan, you might think at once of John Bunyan, if you chanced to have got your impression of the Dreamer, as I did, from an old picture of a countenance full of grace, with silvery locks flowing down upon the shoulders. This peculiarity makes Dr. Malan's appearance most venerable and delightful. His eye is remarkably quick and piercing, his countenance expressive and changeful with emotion,

"Like light and shade upon a waving field,

Coursing each other, while the flying clouds
Now hide, and now reveal, the sun."

None who have been much with him can forget his cheerful laugh, or the sudden animating bright smile and playful remark, bespeaking a deep and sparkling fountain of peace and love within.

I hope you will not object to my being thus minute in my description of personages yet living; for I do not know that there is anything out of the way in endeavoring familiarly to recall the image of an eminent beloved Christian, now in the decline of life, who, however men may choose to differ from his peculiarities, has been permitted to accomplish so much for the advancing kingdom of his Redeemer, has been the chosen instrument of good to so many souls, and is endeared in the depths of so many hearts, both in this country and in England. Dr. Malan's character and household seemed to me like some of the peaceful shining vales among his native mountains, where one might sit upon the hill-side he is climbing, and gaze down upon the green grass and the running murmuring stream, and say within himself, If there were happiness undisturbed in the wide world, it might be here. But who knows? There is no place undisturbed where there is sin. A perfect character and a perfect home shall be found alone in Heaven.

CHAPTER VII.

Dr. Merle D'Aubigné.

DR. MERLE D'AUBIGNÉ was a youthful student in Socinian theology in the College of Geneva; when, in the year 1816, it pleased God to send Mr. Robert Haldane, a remarkable Scottish Christian, on a visit to that city. This man soon became acquainted with a number of the students, and conversed with them familiarly and profoundly concerning the gospel. He found them in great darkness. "Had they been trained," says he, "in the schools of Socrates or Plato, and enjoyed no other means of instruction, they could scarcely have been more ignorant of the doctrines of the gospel. To the Bible and its contents their studies had never been directed. After some conversation, they became convinced of their ignorance of the Scriptures, and of the way of salvation, and exceedingly desirous of information."

The two students with whom Mr. Haldane at first conversed, brought six others in the same state of mind with themselves; and with them he had many and long conversations. Their visits became so frequent, and at such different hours, that at length he proposed they should all come together; and it was arranged that they should do so three times a week, from six to eight o'clock in the evening. This gave him time to converse with others, who, from the report of the students began to visit him, as well as leisure to prepare what might be profitable for their instruction. He took the Epistle to the Romans as his subject; and, during the whole of the winter of 1817, until the termination of their studies in the summer, almost all the students in theology regularly attended.

This was a most remarkable movement of Divine Providence, one of the most remarkable to be found on record. What

renders it more astonishing is the fact that Mr. Haldane at first was obliged to converse with these students through an interpreter, in part at least, so that he could not then have conveyed to them the full fervor of his feelings, nor the fire of the truth as it was burning in his own soul. Nevertheless, these singular labors, under circumstances so unpromising, were so blessed by the Divine Spirit, that sixteen out of eighteen young men, who had enjoyed Mr. Haldane's instructions, are said by Dr. Heugh to have become subjects of Divine grace. And among the students thus brought beneath the power of the word of God, was the future historian of the Reformation, young Merle D'Aubigné.

D'Aubigné himself has described this remarkable movement, Rev. Adolph Monod, of Paris, was a fellow student at this time with D'Aubigné, and dates his own conversion also to the efforts of Mr. Haldane. The Professor of Divinity in the University of Geneva at that time, instead of teaching the students the peculiar doctrines of Christianity, confined himself to lecturing on the immortality of the soul, the existence of God, and similar topics. Instead of the Bible, he gave them quotations from the writings of Seneca and Plato. These were the two saints, whom he delighted to hold up to the admiration of his students. A work on the Divinity of Christ having been published by an Evangelical clergyman, to such an extent did the opposition against the truth prevail, that young D'Aubigné, and the rest of the students, were induced to meet together, and issue a declaration against the work and its pious author.

At this juncture it was that D'Aubigné heard of the visit of Mr. Haldane. He heard of him as the English or Scotch gentleman, who spoke so much about the Bible, a thing which seemed very strange to him and the other students, to whom the Bible was a shut book. He afterwards met Mr. Haldane at a private house, along with some other friends, and heard him read from an English Bible, a chapter from the Epistle to the Romans, concerning the natural corruption of man, a doctrine in regard to which he had never before received any instruction. He was astonished to hear of men being corrupt by nature; but clearly convinced by the prayers read to him, he said to Mr.