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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 February 2016
In June 1799 the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland issued a Pastoral Admonition to its congregations denouncing the missionaries of the newly formed Society for Propagating the Gospel at Home (SPGH). They were, it alleged, ‘a set of men whose proceedings threatened] no small disorder to the country’. In issuing this warning the Assembly brought to public attention for the first time the work of two of the most prominent Scottish leaders of the Evangelical Revival, Robert and James Alexander Haldane. The Haldane brothers, two of the moving spirits behind the offending organization, were wealthy Presbyterian converts to an undenominational activism already much in evidence south of the border. For a decade spanning the turn of the century their religious enterprise challenged Scottish ecclesiastical conventions, provoking strong contemporary reactions and leading to a marked divergence in subsequent historical assessment. From ‘the Wesley and Whitefield of Scotland’, at one extreme, they have been described less fulsomely as the source of a movement which, though it alarmed all the Presbyterian churches, proved to be short-lived, dying away ‘among its own domestic quarrels’, ‘marred by bitterness of speech, obscurantism and fanaticism’. Contemporaries seem to have found it little easier to agree on the leaders’ personal qualities. In 1796 Thomas Jones, the minister of Lady Glenorchy’s Chapel in Edinburgh, commended Robert Haldane to William Wilberforce as ‘a man of strickt honour integrity religion prudence and virtue’, who being ‘possessed of a fortune from £50,000 to £60,000 … thinks it is his duty… to employ a considerable portion of it in promoting the cause of God’. By 1809 Haldane’s former friend and colleague, Greville Ewing, had become so disenchanted with his methods that, having referred to him scornfully as ‘the POPE of independents’, he accused him bitterly of ‘the greatest effort [he had ever seen] from any motive whatsoever, to ruin the comfort, and the usefulness, of a minister of the gospel’. Though his brother, James, appears to have inspired a more universal affection, the forcefulness of both personalities ensured that mere neutrality would never be easy.
1 Acts of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, 1638–1842 (Edinburgh, 1843), p. 871.
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4 Thomas Snell Jones to William Wilberforce, 14 Sept. 1796, Edinburgh University Library, Laing MSS La.II.500. Lady Glenorchy’s Chapel was a proprietary building linked to the Church of Scodand.
s Ewing, G., Facts and Documents respecting the Connections which have subsisted between Robert Haldane, Esq. and Greville Ewing, laid before the public, in consequence of Letters which the Former has addressed to the Latter, respecting the Tabernacle at Glasgow (Glasgow, 1809), pp. 249–50Google Scholar.
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11 The wholly lay character of the SPGH was unusual. The long-established Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge had always exhibited strong clerical direction, but even in newer bodies such as the Edinburgh and Glasgow Missionary Societies the ministerial element remained prominent.
12 An Account of the Proceedings of the Society for Propagating the Gospel at Home, from their commence ment, December 28. 1797, to May 16. 1799 (Edinburgh, 1799), pp. 8, 11, 14.
13 Edinburgh, Scottish Record Office, MS GD 95/2/11.
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16 John Craigie to William Robertson, 6 April 1799, SRO, MS GD 214/659; Dundee University Library, Br. MS 3/DC/7; Missionary Magazine, 4 (1799), pp. 110–11.
17 Hill’s practical assistance was reinforced by the journals of his two Scottish preaching tours which were published in 1799 and 1800, and by his Series of Letters, occasioned by the late Pastoral Admonition of the Church of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1799).
18 Philip, R., The Life, Times, and Missionary Enterprises, of the Rev. John Campbell (London, 1841), pp. 79–100Google Scholar.
19 The Missionary Magazine, a periodical Monthly Publication, intended as A Repository of Discussion, and Intelligence respecting the Progress of the Gospel Throughout the World (Edinburgh, 1796–1813). 20 The Evangelical Magazine had commenced publication in 1793.
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23 Ewing, Facts and Documents, Appendix, pp. 257–62; Catherine McNeil to Alexander Haldane, 27 May 1851, Gleneagles, Haldane MSS.
24 Acts of the General Assembly, pp. 868–73; George Hill to Henry Dundas, 30 May 1799, SRO, MSS GD 51/5/427/6-7.
25 Struthers, Relief church, pp. 404–5; Haldane, Robert and James Alexander Haldane, pp. 260–1.
26 William Porteous to Robert Dundas, 24 Jan. 1797, EUL, Laing MSS La.II.500.
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31 The first editions of these works were published in 1816 and 1835 respectively.
32 Haldane, R., Letter to M.J.J. Chenevière, Pastor and Professor of Divinity at Geneva: occasioned by his ‘Summary of the Theological Controversies which of late Years have agitated the City of Geneva’, published in the Monthly Repository of Theology and General Literature (Edinburgh, 1824), pp. 2–8, 24–5Google Scholar.
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36 Haldane, R., For the Consideration of the Ministers of the Church of Scotland. Remarks on Dr Tholuck’s Exposition of Si Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, translated by one of themselves (Edinburgh, 1837), pp. 4–5Google Scholar.
37 Haldane, J. A., Man’s Responsibility; the Nature and Extent of the Atonement; and the Work of the Holy Spirit; in reply to Mr Howard Hinton and the Baptist Midland Association (Edinburgh, 1842), part 2, caps 1–2Google Scholar.
38 Haldane, J. A., Refutation of the Heretical Doctrine Promulgated by the Rev. Edward Irving, respecting the Person and Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ (Edinburgh, 1829), p. 9Google Scholar.
39 Monthly Repository, 19 (1824), p. 4.
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41 2nd edn., 2 vols (London, 1834), 1, pp. i-ii, xvi-xviii.
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45 Ibid., p. 652.
46 Haldane, J. A., A View of the Social Worship and Ordinances Observed by the First Christians, Drawn from the Sacred Scriptures Alone: being An Attempt to Enforce their Divine Obligation; and to represent the guilt and evil consequences of neglecting them, 2nd edn. (Edinburgh, 1806), p. 108Google Scholar; Observations on Mr Brown’s Vindication of the Presbyterian Form of Church Government, As Professed in the Standards of the Church of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1806), pp. 33, 40–1.
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48 Ewing, , Facts and Documents, pp. 7–8Google Scholar; Haldane, R., Address to the Public concerning Political Opinions, and Plans lately adopted to Promote Religion in Scotland, 2nd edn. (Edinburgh, 1800), p. 32Google Scholar. Somerville was the senior parish minister at Stirling from 1793 until 1817†.
49 Greville Ewing was an assistant to Thomas Jones at Lady Glenorchy’s Chapel, Edinburgh until December 1798 when he left the Established Church in order to become a Congregational minister at the Haldane Tabernacle in Glasgow. William Innes held the second parish charge at Stirling until he resigned in 1799 to become the resident minister at the Dundee Tabernacle. David Bogue was pastor of an Independent church at Gosport, Hampshire, a position which he held from 1777 until 1825 †.
50 Robert Haldane to Henry Dundas, 30 Sept. 1796, Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, MS 2257 fol. 53r.
51 Robert Haldane to Robert Dundas, 28 Sept. 1796, EUL, Laing MSS La.II.500.
52 SRO, MSS GD 95/2/11 and GD 95/1/6. I am indebted to David Currie for bringing these references to my attention.
53 William Innes to Alexander Haldane, undated, Gleneagles, Haldane MSS.
54 Robison, J., Proofs of a Conspiracy against all the Religions and Governments of Europe, carried on in the secret meetings of Free Masons, Illuminati and Reading Societies (Edinburgh, 1797), p. 485Google Scholar; Haldane, A., Robert and James Alexander Haldane, pp. 212–17Google Scholar.
55 Acts of the General Assembly, pp. 868–9, 873–5.
56 George Hill to Henry Dundas, 30 May 1799, SRO, MS GD 51/5/427/6, fol. 2V.
57 William Robertson to Robert Dundas, 10 May 1799, SRO, MS GD 214/659.
58 Presbytery of Caithness, minutes 8 Jan. 1799 to 12 Jan. 1802 passim, SRO, MS CH 2/47/6; William Sutherland to William Robertson, undated, SRO, MS GD 214/659; Catherine McNeil to Miss Haldane, 28 April 1851, Gleneagles, Haldane MSS.
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64 Haldane, J. A., Two Letters to the Rev. Dr Chalmers, on his Proposal for Increasing the Number of Churches in Glasgow, 2nd edn. (Edinburgh, 1820), pp. 16–17Google Scholar.
65 Haldane, J. A., Two Letters to the Rev. Dr Chalmers, p. 17Google Scholar.
66 Haldane, J. A., Journal of a Tour, p. 40Google Scholar.
67 Evangelical parish ministers in Edinburgh had, with the opening of the Circus, a more local cause of resentment. Not only did its preference for Independency accentuate the schismatic tendency within Evangelicalism, but the succession of visiting preachers ensured a constant leaching of support from their own congregations.
68 Acts of the General Assembly, p. 872. Contrary also to Mathieson, Church and Reform, p. 84.
69 Reeves, , ‘Scottish and English Evangelicals’, p. 1Google Scholar; Lovegrove, D. W., Established Church, Sectarian People. Itinerancy and the Transformation of English Dissent, 1780–1830 (Cambridge, 1988), cap. 4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
70 Calder, R. F., ‘Robert Haldane’s theological seminary’, TCHS, 13 (1937-9), pp.53, 59–63Google Scholar.
71 David Sutherland to Alexander Haldane, 7 Nov. 1853, Gleneagles, Haldane MSS.
72 Ewing, , Facts and Documents, pp. 68–70Google Scholar. Haldane argued that more time should be devoted to reading Church History and Divinity and to ‘searching and explaining the Scriptures’.
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77 Although his seminary classes ended in 1808, Robert Haldane continued to show an interest in theological education. Apart from well publicized activities at Geneva and Montauban between 1817 and 1819, he provided financial support during the 1820s for the training of Baptist home missionaries at Grantown-on-Spey and for a small institution in Paris. A. Haldane, Robert and James Alexander Haldane, p. 331; Robert Haldane to Sergeant Lefroy, 4 Sept. 1822, Gleneagles, Haldane MSS.
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98 Bebbington, D. W., Evangelicalism in Modern Britain. A History from the 1730s to the 1980s (London, 1989), pp. 87–8Google Scholar.
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