On his arrival at Montauban, where the double functions of professor and dean had been confided to him, he imparted firmness to the professorship of theology by the solidity of his doctrine, the extent of his learning, and the authority of his character. All acknowledged that he had a right to exact much from every one, since he exacted more from himself.
Unhappily his strength was soon exhausted by the labours of his office; yet although suffering and ill, he continued to consecrate the remainder of his expiring life. Seeing that his end was near, he proceeded to Montpellier, where the ashes of his first wife and daughter reposed, and died there on the 16th of September, 1818. “There is only one voice in the Protestant church of France as to the irreparable loss it has sustained,” said the editor of the Archives of Christianity, on the announcement of this sorrowful news.
M. Daniel Encontre engaged himself upon philosophical and religious subjects in some sketches which obtained deserved success. His letter to M. Combe-d’Ounous on Plato, and his dissertation upon the true system of the world compared with the Mosaic relation, prove that he made profound researches upon questions, which have in all ages most deeply interested the human mind.
However, French Protestantism strove to found some new institutions. The general meeting of the Bible Society of France was convoked on the 6th of December, 1819. We quote the following observation from the president’s speech, which has an historical value: “According to our by-laws and the government authorization, the Bible Society of Paris consists solely of Protestants. It appears, and we ought not to complain of it, that the government has thus invited the Reformed to make each other’s acquaintance to edify one another, and to become more exemplary, by intercommunication.” Such, in effect, was, next to the essential motive of religious faith, one of the principal objects of the members of the Bible Society under the Restoration; namely, that of offering to the Protestants scattered over the face of the kingdom, without any common organization, a central rallying-point around which they might assemble for reciprocal assistance, an advantage of vital importance when considered with reference to the intrigues and encroachments of the clerical party.
Other associations were successively established: The Religious Tract Society, in 1822; and The Society for the Encouragement of Primary Instruction among the Protestants of France, in 1829. Each of these institutions contributed its share in fortifying and extending the empire of Christian piety.
Among the men, who laboured to found these societies, displaying as much intelligence as devotion, the Baron Auguste de Staël should be named.
He was the grandson of Necker, the son of Madame de Staël and the brother of the Duchess de Broglie. The Protestant churches welcomed in him one of those pious laymen, so useful in former times, who united political influence with a Christian spirit; and they were glad, allowing for the difference of time and circumstances, to salute him as the future Duplessis-Mornay, or the Wilberforce of the French Reformation.
Born at Coppet, in the canton of Vaud, in 1790, he received his first religious lessons from the venerable pastor Cellerier. His biographer says: “We do not doubt that M. de Staël owed a great part of his just ideas on religion, and of the excellent sentiments he so early displayed, to his connection and intimacy with this tried and faithful minister; and we can confidently affirm that the scholar ever entertained the liveliest and most tender remembrance of his teacher.”[145]
The part he took in the establishment of the Bible Society helped to develop his pious tendencies. Having accepted the task of drawing up the Reports of the Committee, and of going from house to house to exhort the faithful to make sacrifices for the dissemination of the Scriptures, he learned better to appreciate the holy books himself.
During a visit to England in the spring of 1822, he became acquainted with Wilberforce and other eminent Christians, whose words and examples strengthened his sentiments of piety. The Letters upon England, which he published in 1825, give but an imperfect idea of the observations he collected upon this subject; for the author confined himself to a treatise upon the religion and the Christian communions of Great Britain in a volume which he was not able to complete.