Geneva. The very name has been fondly fixed in the minds of those with a reformed Christian faith. This was the Reformation City of Switzerland, where John Calvin had led the movement; it was to Geneva that John Knox had come as a refugee with so many Protestants who had fled persecution at the hand of the Romanists. Here in Geneva stands the famous Reformation Wall with four of its central heroes carved in stone: Farel, Calvin, Beza and Knox. It was to this city that Robert Haldane came in 1816.
Renting an apartment near the famous University of Geneva, this Scottish aristocrat excitedly walked to the theological college to speak with the students. He was not prepared for the utter shock that he would face: here, in the heart of the Reformation City, he could hardly find a single theology student who knew Christ and the gospel! Recovering from his shock, he came to realise that Enlightenment philosophy had so drenched the theology department, that its very life was virtually extinguished. There were some students who were hungry for God and they were intrigued by this Scottish aristocrat who spoke so clearly and simply about the good news of Christ, which had previously been obscured. At first a few came to his apartment for Christian instruction, then they came in droves. As they repented of their sin and trusted in Christ as their Lord and Saviour, they received the assurance of eternal life. The Holy Spirit was being poured out and the stream of converts became a river. Soon Geneva was bustling with the gospel again, and Haldane travelled to Montauban in France where the same scenes accompanied his preaching. Out of this movement sprang passionate leaders like César Malan, Frédéric Monod and Jean-Henri Merle d’Aubigné. A resurgence of evangelism burst out in Switzerland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Hungary, with evangelical churches springing up in many places.
Robert Haldane (1764-1842) grew up in wealth and influence, inheriting his father’s estates in Scotland, based at Airthrey Castle, near Stirling. When he was converted to Christ in 1795, his younger brother James followed soon afterwards. These two brothers would be used by God to shake Scotland and Europe. Robert was so enamoured by Christ’s love for the lost that he was ready to sell all of his estates, which would amount to many millions of pounds today, and plough all of his resources into gospel work. Inspired by the courageous work of William Carey in India, he offered to sell his estates to sponsor missionary work in Bengal, but he was turned down by the East India Company. He and James focused their resources on reaching Scotland because the Church of Scotland was entrenched in a liberal, non-missionary ideology. Edinburgh became the Haldane mission base in 1797, where they set up the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel at Home, and with indefatigable energy they planted 85 churches in Scotland and Ireland, and built preaching centres in Glasgow, Dundee, Perth, Thurso, Wick, Edinburgh and Elgin. Keen to equip missionaries for the task of evangelising the world, they pioneered Bible colleges in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee, where they funded workers for 2-3 years, before sending them out. Through this means over 300 missionaries surged forth to spread the gospel to the nations. Many schools emerged out of this extraordinary movement, so that education and the gospel went hand-in-hand.
Passion for the purity of the Bible burned in Robert Haldane’s heart, so that in 1825 he was engaged in a battle about the Apocrypha. In 1804, the British and Foreign Bible Society had been formed by William Wilberforce and others, in order to circulate the Scriptures in both English and in the languages of the nations. Following this, two Bible societies were pioneered in Edinburgh (1809) and in Glasgow (1812). However, in 1821 the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) started printing Bibles with non-canonical books in them to please the Roman Catholics. Robert Haldane blew the trumpet about this compromise, and found himself engaged in a battle for the purity of the Bible, which was rectified years later by the BFBS when they withdrew the Apocrypha. The Scottish Bible societies remained independent however, and finally converged in 1861 to establish the National Bible Society of Scotland, based in Edinburgh.
‘Contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints’ (Jude 3, NKJV).
Image: Robert Haldane (1764-1842), from https://ukwells.org/revivalists/robert-haldan