merits. It might have been hoped that his controversial warfare had now ended, and that his life would have been left undisturbed to those important theological investigations which he so greatly delighted to prosecute. But, in
1838, a generous love of fair play, and sympathy for the oppressed, obliged him once more to buckle on his armour. The clergy of the Established Church in Edinburgh were paid, as they had long been, by an annuity-tax levied upon
every householder within the royalty of the city. But at this the Dissenters and Seceders had demurred, and were now in open opposition; while many, from mistaken conscientiousness, or allured by the eclat of martyrdom divested
of its more serious pains and penalties, were willing to incur the risk of fine or even of imprisonment rather than support any longer what they called "the State Church." Thus the Established clergy of Edinburgh were surrounded by
a blockade, and threatened to be reduced by famine. It was then that Haldane, himself a Dissenter, hastened to the rescue. He boldly assailed the coalition that had been formed for the non-payment of the annuity-tax; grounding his argument upon the first seven verses of the thirteenth chapter of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, and startled the recusants by proving from this authority that they were guilty of rebellion against Christ himself. His appeal was addressed through one of the Edinburgh newspapers, and eleven letters followed, in which he pursued the same line of argument. So successful were these addresses that the tide of popular feeling was turned, the coalition broken, and its leader silenced. It would be well for the Established clergy of Edinburgh, if again, when the hostile feeling has been renewed, they could find such another advocate.
Old age and its decay were now doing their appointed work, and by 1840 Mr. Haldane was obliged to desist from his wonted duties as preacher in the chapel which he had erected at Auchingray. But to the last he continued to interest himself in religious and missionary movements, and to revise and improve his Exposition of the Romans, which he justly regarded as the most important of all his writings. Thus he continued to the close of his life, on the 12th of December, 1842, when he died, rejoicing in the faith he had preached, and the love and Christian charity which his whole life had so beautifully exemplified. His remains lie interred in one of the aisles of the venerable cathedral of Glasgow, awaiting the joyful resurrection of the just. Only six months after his widow also died, and her body was buried in the same vault with her husband. Their only child, Margaret, left one son and three daughters, the grandchildren of Robert Haldane, who still survive as his lineal representatives.
HALL, Captain Basil, R.N.—Sir James Hall, Bart., of Dunglass, in the county of Haddington, and M.P. for the borough of St. Michael's, Cornwall, who was father of the subject of the present biographical notice, obtained a distinguished name in the scientific world by his successful researches, as well as his writings. A part of his education was acquired at a university, where he had for one of his fellow-students no less a personage than Napoleon Bonaparte himself. Of this the fallen emperor, who never forgot anything, whether for good or evil, had a most distinct recollection; and when his son was introduced to him, more than thirty years afterwards, at St. Helena, he exclaimed, on hearing his name, "Ah! Hall; I knew your father when I was at the military college of Brienne—I remember him perfectly—he was fond of mathematics—he did not associate much with the younger part of the scholars, but rather
