Haldane

Haldane, ROBERT, was born in London, February 28, 1764, and was educated at the grammar-school of Dundee and the university of Edinburgh. In 1780 he joined the Monarch, his uncle Viscount Duncan's ship, afterwards saw some service under Admiral Jervis, and was present at the relief of Gibraltar, but left the navy at the peace of 1783 to settle on his estate near Stirling. The French Revolution fired him with new hopes for the regeneration of man, but ere long a profound spiritual change turned the energies of his life into completely new channels. His vast project for a great mission in Bengal, at his own expense, was frustrated by the East India Company's refusal of his sanction; but by his 'Society for the Propagation of the Gospel at Home' he built so many 'tabernacles' and supported so many itinerant preachers that in twelve years he had expended more than £70,000. In the year 1817 he lectured to theological students at Geneva and Moutauban, and returned to Scotland in 1819, taking an active interest thereafter in all religious questions, as the Apocrypha and Sabbath controversies. He died 12th December 1842. His best-known books are Evidences and Authority of Divine Revelation (1816), On the Inspiration of Scripture (1828), and Exposition of the Epistle to the Romans (1835).—JAMES ALEXANDER, brother of the preceding, was born at Dundee, July 14, 1768, and was educated at the High School and university of Edinburgh. At sixteen he entered the navy, and served for nine years, after which he abruptly abandoned the service, although in the meantime he had been appointed to the command of a vessel. A study of the Bible had led him to the same conclusions in religion as his elder brother. Soon afterwards he made the acquaintance of the famous Simeon of Cambridge, and with him traversed Scotland on an evangelistic tour. His later missionary journeys brought him into collision with the Church of Scotland, and at length in 1799 he was ordained the independent pastor of a church in Edinburgh, in which he preached gratuitously for fifty years, and which in 1808 he led into the Baptist fold. He died 8th February 1851. His pamphlets were widely read in their day by those within the range of his influence. Two late books were his Doctrine of the Atonement (1845) and his Exposition of the Epistle to the Galatians (1848). See Memoirs of R. and J. A. Haldane, by Alexander Haldane (1852).