The Word of God, ONLY; The Work of the Spirit, ONLY. The formal principle, the material principle, and the personal principle, of Christianity, are here enunciated; and D'Aubigné has set them in such direct and powerful array against the corresponding counteracting, enormous errors of Rome and of the Oxford Theologians, that the moment you look upon the battle array, you see the victory; the masterly disposition of the forces tells you beforehand the history of the combat. Singling out each of the columns of error that make Oxford one with Rome, he drives each of these great principles of Christianity against them with such steadfast tread and condensation, that nothing can withstand the shock. Such a description of so brief an essay might almost seem hyperbolical; but the little essay condenses thought for whole volumes, and I beg you, if you find fault with me, to read it, and test its power for yourself. See if it does not make upon your own mind the impression of victory, of greatness. The manners of D'Aubigné are marked by a plain, manly, unassuming simplicity, no shade of ostentation, no mark of the world's applause upon him—a thing which often leaves a cloud of vain self consciousness over the character of a great man, worse by far than any shade produced by the world's frowns. His conversation is full of good sense, just thought and pious feeling, disclosing a ripe judgment and a quiet, well-balanced mind. You would not, perhaps, suspect him of a vivid imagination, and yet his writings do often show a high degree of that quality. A child-like simplicity is the most marked characteristic to a stranger, who is often surprised to see so illustrious a man so plain and affable. He is about fifty years of age. You would see in him a tall, commanding form, much above the stature of his countrymen, a broad, intelligent forehead, a thoughtful, unsuspicious countenance, a cheerful, pleasant eye, over which are set a pair of dark, shaggy eyebrows, like those of Webster. His person is robust, his frame large, anc powerful, and apparently capable of great endurance; yet his health is infirm. Altogether, in face and form his appear ance might be described in three words-noble, grave, and simple. The habit of wearing spectacles has given him an upward look, in order to command the centre of the glass, which adds to the peculiar openness and manliness of his mein. He has great earnestness and emphasis of manner in his discourses to his students. The residence of D'Aubigné, embowered in foliage on the banks of the lake opposite the Jura mountains, commands the loveliest sunset view of that mighty forest-covered range, reflected, with the glowing purple clouds and evening sky, in the bosom of the quiet waters. "How completely," said Dr. Arnold, speaking from the fullness of his rich, classical associations, "is the Jura like Citharon, with its varai and decμives, and all that scenery, which Euripides has given to the life in the Baccha." Are not all mountains more glorious in the sunset? They certainly seem more intelligent at that hour than at any other. They seem like a vast, silent, meditative consciousness. What shall I say of the flush of rich deep color, and the atmosphere of glory, in which the Jura range, "with its pines and oaks, its deep glens, and its thousand flowers," lies sleeping? Meantime, the Lake ripples at your feet, and whispers its low, stilly, hushing music, so soft, so quiet, as if almost it were the expression of an ecstatic, in-dwelling soul, communing with the parting light, that, as it dies away, fills the face of the Lake with such indescribable and pensive beauty. Sometimes it seems, as you stand beneath the trees, and look across the lake, and up to where the Jura outline cuts the sky, as if all heaven were opening before you; but speedily, as the shadows deepen, comes that sober coloring to the eye, that hath kept watch o'er man's mortality, and the earth, the air, the water, though so pure, so bright, do breathe irresistibly upon your mind a sacred melancholy. But why should this melancholy be connected with the twilight, and the stars, and all at evening-fall, that is so beautiful? Perhaps it is because "in the cool of the day" God came down to talk with Adam concerning his sin, and the stars saw him, and the shades of evening were around him, when he fled to hide himself beneath the trees in the garden. Ah, how this green light, that lingers in the west, looked to him then, when the bliss of innocence had gone from his soul, and he began to be afraid of God! "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 Theopneustin, 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 acknow. ledgement 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 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 300 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 forever, 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 renounces 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 in 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 exercise in which the |