M. Samuel Vincent was born at Nismes in 1787; he was the son and grandson of pastors of the desert, and had derived from his paternal traditions, a profound attachment to the Reformed communion, cemented with the blood of martyrs, and which has withstood so many storms. One may differ from the ideas, which this learned pastor entertained upon some articles of dogma and discipline; but no one can dispute his firm and invariable desire to bring the scattered members of the great body of the French Reformation together, and to instil into it, with the divine blessing, new seeds of life. M. Vincent faithfully reproduced the expression, the tendencies, and the character of the Protestants of the south, who have shown so much steadfastness and heroism in the days of persecution, and who had already, towards the end of the sixteenth century, distinguished themselves from the Protestants of the north.
After completing his studies at Geneva, he was appointed to the ministry of the Reformed church at Nismes, like his father and grandfather. He won distinction by the variety of his acquirements, the urbanity of his private life, and his zeal in exciting a useful activity around him. He was a man of meditation and impulse, ever ready most freely to dispense the valuable thoughts which he had gathered, and willingly surrendered to others the honour of the initiative, which he had given them.
From 1820 to 1824 he published, in the form of a periodical collection, Mélanges de Religion, de Morale, et de Critique, with the particular object of initiating the French pastors in the movement of German theology during the last eighty years. The task was ungrateful. It was in a manner necessary to create his auditory before he could instruct them, and M. Vincent had occasion to convince himself that it is sometimes more difficult to inspire the taste for science, than to communicate science itself.
When M. de Lamennais attacked Protestantism with all the vehemence of his genius, the pastor of Nismes answered him by his Observations sur la Voie d’Autorité appliquée à la Religion. Less skilful as a writer than his illustrious adversary, he maintained a better cause and defended it by more solid arguments. It is to be regretted that M. de Lamennais should have assumed a disdainful superiority in his reply, forgetting that in such a debate, victory is not won by haughtiness of language, but by soundness of reasoning.
We have already had occasion to cite the Views upon Protestantism in France, a work in which M. Vincent has embodied his reflections upon the principal questions of doctrine and ecclesiastical organization. This book bears evidence of a strong and independent mind, and yet the author does not appear to have displayed all the powers which he possesses; it is the first effort of a great intellect and a generous heart.
M. Vincent died on the 10th of July, 1837; (Roman) Catholics and Protestants joined in following to his last resting-place [the remains of] a man, who had reflected honour at once upon Protestantism and his country.
The second question, agitated among the Protestants after 1830, concerned, as we have said, the separation of Church and State. The Revolution of 1789 made a distinction between the temporal and the spiritual [powers]. It confined the priest to his proper domain, the magistrate to his, and it separated the citizen from the believer. But is it right to go to this extent? Ought the State to regard the Church or the churches, as no more than private societies, free institutions, which exist under the common right of protection by conforming to the general laws, and without receiving any salary for their ministers? Or ought the State to treat with these institutions, to confer upon them an official character by its alliance, and to place them, with reference to other associations, in a privileged position? The question is one of vast importance; it involves the entire notions of Church and State, and the manner of resolving it affects the gravest problems of religion and politics. It is not difficult to understand that men of equal enlightenment, sincerity, and piety, may adopt entirely different opinions in this controversy. It has engaged (Roman) Catholicism as well as Protestantism. MM. de Lamennais and de Lamartine have both pronounced for the complete separation of the two powers. The same thesis has been maintained in the Protestant communion by a thinker of the highest order, whose name deserves a place among the greatest—M. Vinet, who, although not belonging to the French Reformation either by birth, or by way of naturalization or domicile, has written for it, and influenced it, and therefore a few lines concerning him will not be out of place.
M. Alexandre Vinet was born in a village of the canton of Vaud. He was educated at Lausanne, and while still young filled the chair of literature in the University of Basle. This was a happy position for a mind like his; for, placed upon the frontier of the two principal civilizations of the continent, he could take from either what was most excellent, stamping it at the same time with the seal of that manly independence which is instinctively acquired in the most ancient republic of Europe. He received learning from Germany, precision of judgment and language from France, the sentiment of liberty from his own country, the faith that purifies and corrects everything from the Gospel; and out of these different elements his eminently original genius composed an harmonious whole, which it is more easy to name than to describe.
As a critic, few writers of the present day have equalled, and none have surpassed him, at least in the essential conditions of the art. He loved to discover and vindicate the beauties of literary works rather than to point out their defects, and one might occasionally wonder at the praises, with which he sometimes dignified mediocre writings, were it not that he naturally delighted in the good and the beautiful, and that wherever he encountered the palest image of these [features], he made it lustrous by the contact of his own intellect. M. Vinet lauded in others, without knowing it, the merits that he had imparted to them.
His style has been appreciated in these terms by M. Sainte Beuve, one of the most competent judges that could be named on such a subject: “He possesses” [says M. Sainte Beuve] “an originality which reproduces and condenses the qualities of French Switzerland in the most happy manner, and at the same time his language is generally excellent, of Attic turn, and redolent with choicest flowers.... If I might venture to express my actual thought, I should say that, after M. Daunou for the ancient school, after M. Villemain for the modern, he is, in my judgment, of all French writers, the one who has best analyzed the models, sifted and deciphered the language, fathomed its limits and its centre, and noted its various and veritable acceptations.”[146]