[Footnote 20: Genève religieuse au XIX siècle: par le Baron de Goltz; traduit de l'allemand par C. Malan: 8vo., pp. 137-149. Genève et Paris. 1862.]
In 1816 and 1817 the evangelical reaction made rapid progress, and the body of Genevese pastors resolved to combat it by the voice of authority. They found, however, no better method of doing so than by insisting upon what, twelve years later, even M. Samuel Vincent did not scruple to recommend; they prescribed silence even whilst they proclaimed liberty. "Without"—these are their words—"giving any judgment upon the questions really involved, and without controlling in any respect the liberty of opinions," they imposed a solemn engagement both upon students demanding to be consecrated to the sacred ministry, and upon ministers candidates for pastoral functions in the Church of Geneva. It was conceived as follows: "As long as we reside and preach in the churches of the Canton of Geneva, we promise to abstain from establishing, either in entire discourses or in parts of discourses directed to this object, our opinion—first, of the manner in which the divine nature was incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ; secondly, of original sin; thirdly, of the mode in which grace operates, or grace is efficient; fourthly, of predestination. We promise also not to combat, in any public discourse, the opinion of any pastors or ministers touching these subjects." [Footnote 21]
[Footnote 21: Genève religieuse au XIX siècle: par le Baron de Goltz; p. 153.]
It is difficult to understand how men ever could have flattered themselves with the hope of re-establishing peace in the Church by the employment of so sorry an expedient. Liberty, that has rent asunder such heavy chains, does not permit itself to be confined by so flimsy a net. The immediate effect of the regulation of the Genevese pastors was an outburst of discontent. The more violent Methodists, MM. Malan and Bost at their head, proclaimed aloud their separation from the established Church; the more moderate, among others, MM. Gaussen and Merle d'Aubigné, persisted in remaining, by right of their ministry, in its bosom, holding themselves responsible representatives there of the doctrines of the Reformation, which, in fact, they did continue to preach and to teach. The body of pastors at first used great forbearance toward them, and respected their liberty; and when the populace, irritated at the agitation caused in families by the Dissenters, and offended by the austerity of their precepts, made hostile demonstrations toward them, the Council of Geneva had the wisdom and fairness to use measures of repression; but, soon becoming weary of this painful duty, the Council formally forbade, without its express permission, any book of religious controversy to be printed at Geneva. The body of pastors soon pronounced as vehement a condemnation of the moderate Methodists as of the ultra Dissenters. The moderate Methodists then in their turn resorted to energetic measures in support of their cause: they founded an evangelical society and a school of theology; devoted the one to propagate the zeal and the other to teach the principles of the Christian reaction; and fifteen years after the commencement of the struggle, the chiefs of the party which had proclaimed that the free divergence of individual belief in the bosom of the Church was "the great fact of our epoch, and the great step that the Reformation had in our days to make"—these chiefs, being the body of pastors, the Consistory, and the Council of State at Geneva, suspended M. Gaussen from his functions of pastor in the parish of Satigny for having taken part in the organization of an independent form of worship, and of a school of independent theology; "a proceeding," they said, "incompatible with the peace of the Church, and to be regarded as an act of insubordination, tending to bring ecclesiastical authority into discredit." [Footnote 22]
[Footnote 22: Genève religieuse au XIX siècle: par le Baron de Goltz; pp. 379-384.]
Such religious ferment in the primitive home of the French Reformation, and at the very gates of France, could not fail to exercise a powerful influence upon the French Protestant Church. On quitting Geneva in 1817, Mr. Robert Haldane proceeded to Montauban, where he formed friendships with some of the Professors of the Faculty, and among others with M. Daniel Encontre. He published there also a work in French, which his friends hastened to circulate. It was styled "Emmanuel: vues Scripturaires sur Jésus-Christ." In 1818, a society formed in England, named the "Continental Society," specially devoted itself to the purpose of seconding on the Continent the progress of this Christian reaction. An English dissenter, Mr. Mark Wilks, pastor of the American community formed at Paris, was the most efficient agent of the societies which had this object in view. "It might be said of Mr. Wilks," wrote lately the Pastor Juillerat, "that he might have governed an empire, his character was so energetic, his mind so active and enterprising. He brought me aid of every description: money was required, he had money; pamphlets and books were wanted, no one was better provided; no one understood better the details pertaining to the printing and publication of papers." Several Protestant journals and magazines, "La Voix de la Religion Chrétienne au XIX siècle," "Les Archives du Christianisme au XIX siècle," "Les Mélanges de Religion, de Morale, et de Critique Sacrée," "L'Evangeliste," "La Revue Protestante," "Le Semeur," etc., etc., were at this epoch successively founded and carried in different directions throughout the scattered Protestant Church, from its central organization, the fervor which had there been kindled. Genuine zeal for religion is not satisfied by action from a distance, or by action upon unknown persons, or by indirect means, as by books and by journals: it demands direct oral communication from man to man—the union of men's souls in common prayer. Certain young pastors who had at first shared in the evangelical movement at Geneva, MM. Neff, Pyt, Bost, Gonthier, scattered themselves over France, some assuming functions as local pastors, others as traveling missionaries, attracting to their proximity groups of zealous Protestants, animating the lukewarm, and erecting in every place where they made any stay little centers of Christianity, which radiated to the neighboring country around. Distinct associations, some officially recognized by the State, others having no public character, [Footnote 23] gave to the labors of isolated individuals the publicity, the unity, the permanence which they required; and a special organization (colportage biblique) which at its commencement numbered only seven, but a few years afterward had sixty agents, all of them, although obscure individuals, as zealous as their patrons were zealous, caused the Holy Scriptures and religious tracts to penetrate into parts of France hopelessly inaccessible to any other method of communication and of instruction.
[Footnote 23: La Société biblique, la Société pour l'encouragement de l'instruction primaire parmi les protestants, la Société évangélique de France, la Société des traités religieuse, la Société des missions protestantes, la Société centrale pour les intérêts protestants, la Société d'évangelisation, etc.]