neva; it had lapsed from the faith, and was overrun with Arianism and infidelity. Here he resided more than two years, and proceeded in the same manner as he had done at Geneva. And, happily, it was with similar results. Several ministers and many young students, who had been trained in Rationalism, were awoke from their security, and converted to the faith under his apostolic ministry. At length, the near prospect of the death of his father-in-law, in Scotland, occasioned his return, but with the purpose of revisiting Montauban, which, however, he was not destined to accomplish. It would be difficult to estimate the effects of this singular tour; D'Aubigne, no mean judge of great religious movements, has characterized it as "one of the most beautiful episodes in the history of the church." Its history, we doubt not, will long continue to be read in the future religious progress of France and Switzerland. Besides the distinguished leading men in the continental churches who were reclaimed from the prevalent darkness, among whom may be mentioned Caesar Malan, of Geneva, and Merle D'Aubigne, the eloquent historian of the Reformation, it is calculated, on the authority of M. Mejanel, that in France and Switzerland more than sixty ministers had been converted by the instrumentality of Mr. Haldane. Twenty-four years afterwards the folio wing attestation of his labours was written by the president of the French Protestant Consistory to Mr. Haldane's nephew:—"We have borne him in our heart ever since the moment when the Lord blessed us by bringing him into the midst of us; and the good which he has done to us, and which is extending more and more in our church, renders, and will render, his name and memory for ever dear. When he first appeared in our town [Montauban] the gospel of salvation was in little honour, and its vital doctrines entirely unknown, except by a very few, who, encouraged by our venerable brother, frankly announced them, in spite of the opposition of unbelief. But, thanks be to God, now in this church, as in a great number of others in our France, the truth of God is preached with power, and without ostensible contradiction. The great majority of pastors are approaching nearer and nearer to the orthodoxy of our fathers, and many among them are truly examples of zeal for the house of God. I am often touched, even to tears, in seeing pastors, at whose ordination I did not wish to take part, preach Christ and Christ crucified with liberty of heart, full of force and blessing. I tell you these things, dear Sir, because it is most certainly the fruit of the good seed sown here and elsewhere by your venerable uncle."
On his return to Scotland Mr. Haldane, always indefatigable in the good work to which he had devoted himself, was employed with the state of religion at home and upon the Continent, intermingled with occasional preaching and a missionary visit to Ireland. In this way he occupied himself till 1821, when a painful event called him forth as a controversialist, and that too, not with the enemies, but the professed friends and disseminators of vital uncontaminated Christianity. This conflict in which he was engaged, still remembered as the Apocryphal Controversy, originated in the following circumstances: On the establishment of the British and Foreign Bible Society, it was agreed that the Scriptures should be circulated without note and comment, and that the Apocrypha should be excluded. This condition it was easy to observe at home, and in Protestant countries abroad where the canon of Scripture has been established, and its own inspired language received as the only authority. But it was very different in Popish countries, where the prevalent errors are mainly established upon passages from the Apocryphal writings, and where, conse-
