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 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 the. ology 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 ac quainted 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. Haldane, "Now I do indeed see this doctrine in the Bible." "Yes," replied the good man, "but do you see it in your heart ?". It was but a simple question; but it came home to his conscience it was the sword of the spirit, and from that time he saw and felt that his heart was indeed corrupted, and knew from the Word of God that he could be saved by grace alone in Christ Jesus. Felix Neff, that Alpine Missionary of Apostolic zeal and fervor, was another of these young converts. Never was the seed of the Gospel sown to better effect than in these hearts. Such an incursion of divine grace within the very citadel of error was anything but acceptable to its guardians; but, how could they resist it? Who knows how to shut the heart, when God opens it? What "Venerable Company of Pastors" can stand before the door, and keep out the Divine Spirit, when he chooses to enter ? The strong man armed must give up his house, when a greater than he comes upon him. Nevertheless, an attempt was made on the part of the "Venerable Company" to have Mr. Haldane banished from the country, and it was proposed that he should be cited to answer for the doctrines he was teaching to the students. They would more justly have cited Paul in the Epistle to the Romans; all was of no avail; the light of the gospel was diffused to a remarkable degree, and the religious excitement and knowledge in Geneva went on steadily increasing. The movement among the students had doubtless been greatly helped and forwarded by the remarkable and almost simultaneous conversion and efforts of Dr. Malan among the ministers and teachers. It was of God that Mr. Haldane should visit Geneva at that time. Dr. Merle D'Aubigné finished his university studies and repaired to Berlin in Germany. Thence he was invited to Hamburgh, to become Pastor of a French Protestant Church in that city. After five years spent in that station, he was called by the King of Holland to Brussels, where he became Pastor of an Evangelical Church and Chaplain to the King. At the time of the Revolution in Belgium in 1830, when D'Aubigné was four days and four nights amidst cannon balls and conflagrations in the city, he escaped with no small risk of his life into Holland, and thence returned to his native city. Immediately after this step, the New School of Theology was founded and established, and D'Aubigné accepted in it the office of Professor of Ecclesiastical History and Homiletics. While on his way to Berlin, the mind of D'Aubigné encountered the extraordinary impulse which was the germ of his great work on the History of the Reformation. He had passed through the little town of Eisenach, which was the birth-place of Luther, and was visiting the Castle of the Wartburg, where the great Reformer had been, at such a critical era, safely imprisoned from his enemies. He gazed upon the walls of the cell that Luther occupied. How many men of piety, of learning, of genius, have stood and gazed in like manner! But in the mind of D'Aubigné a great thought was rising; the drama of the lives of the Reformers passed in vision before him; what if he should write the History of the Reformation? The impulse was strengthened by reflection, he devoted himself to Ecclesiastical researches, and so the providence of God led him to the commencement, as we trust it will preserve him for the completion, of that great work. It is a work which will one day cluster around its own history a series of associations and reminiscences, like those that crowd the cell of Luther in the Wartburg. And we should like to see a picture of D'Aubigné standing in that cell, gazing on those walls, and listening to the inward voice which was saying to him, Thou art to write the History of this great Reformation. The visit was of God, as much as Robert Haldane's visit to Geneva, but it is not often that the links of Divine Providence can be so distinctly traced, especially when they pass from outward events into inward purposes. D'Aubigné was prepared for that work by many qualities and studies, but by none more than that earnest simplicity of character, which makes him understand and sympathize perfectly with the simplicity and earnestness of the Reformers, and that deep piety, which leads him to see and to trace God rather than man, in the Reformation. To make his history, he went to the Reformers themselves, and not to what men have said about them; and both the Reformers and their work he has judged by the word of God. By his dramatic and descriptive power, he |