strongest fort in the Church of Scotland. More than anything else it inspired the resistance to kingly absolution and ecclesiastical Erastianism it evoked the spiritual independence of the Scottish Church and made impossible for the Stuart kings to say what Elizabeth said of her policy in the Church of England, "that she tuned its pulpits": it inspired the hero to oppose interference with the authoritative ideal of conscience, and the Church to be moved from within and not from without. Scotland in the seventeenth century is not to be understood apart from its living Calvinism, for this is at the heart of its chivalrous romance, and has helped most potently to make it what it is. But, on the other hand, it is to be recalled that it was Calvinism in its best form-not as an effete doctrine, but in its pristine vigour—as it has been described by one who has made it a special study. "First, it regards religion, not in an utilitarian or eudaemonistic sense, as existing for the sake of man, but for God, and for God alone. This is its dogma of God's sovereignty. Secondly, in religion there must be no intermediation of any creature between God and the soul-all religion is the intermediate work of God Himself, in the inner heart. This is the doctrine of Election. Thirdly, religion is not partial but universal-that is the dogma of common or universal grace. And, finally, in our sinful condition, religion cannot be normal, but has to be soteriological-that is its position in the two-fold dogma of the necessity of regeneration, and of the necessitas S. Scripturae." 1 Such was the strong Puritanism amid which Leighton was educated, both at home and college, and Burnet sums it up by saying "he had been bred up with the greatest aversion imaginable to the whole frame of the Church of England." But the little we do know of his next ten years is suggestive, although the veil only raises itself to fall again. 1 Calvinism, by Prof. A. Kuyper, p. 71. 2 History of His Own Times, vol. i. p. 240. "From Scotland," says the same authority, to whom we owe so much, "his father sent him to travel. He spent some years in France, and spoke that language1 like one born there." Wodrow adds a sentence regarding Robert Leighton which is also suggestive of this and of a subsequent period :"By many he was judged void of any doctrinal principles : and his close correspondence with some of his relations at Douay, in Popish orders, made him suspected, as very much indifferent to all persuasions which bear the name of Christian." "Certain it was," says Row, "that he had too great a latitude of charity towards the Papists, affirming that there were more holy men in the cloisters of Italy and France, praying against the covenant than there were in Britain praying for it." s Nor is the subsequent opposition of the strong Scottish Calvinism without specific interest in the present connexion. "I am told," says Wodrow, "that when Mr. Dickson was Professor at Edinburgh, and Mr. R. Leighton was Principall there, the Principall urged that the Professor might either teach, or at least recommend Thomas à Kempis to his students and told him he regarded it one of the best books that ever was writt, next to the inspired writers. Mr. Dickson refused to do either, and among other reasons from some Popish doctrines contained in it, he added, that neither Christ's satisfaction, nor the doctrine of grace, but self and merit ran throw it." 4 Burnet again informs us that the early visit to Douay was repeated in later years, especially during the time of his Principalship. "Sometimes he went over to Flanders to see what he could find in the several orders of the Church of Rome. There he found some of Jansenius's followers, who 1 This statement by Burnet is corroborated from another source. Dalrymple's Memorials contain a letter of Mr. William Colvill to Lord Balmerino in which he refers to Robert Leighton's "better judgments and better experience" in French. p. 58. 2 Ibid. Analecta, vol. iii. p. 452. 4 Life of Robert Blair, p. 404. seemed to be men of extraordinary temper, and who studied to bring things, if possible, to the purity and simplicity of the primitive ages: on which all his thoughts were much set."1 Such is all that can be gathered as referring directly and indirectly, wholly or partially to the period between 1631 when Robert Leighton went abroad and 1641 when he was ordained minister of Newbattle. But interpreted in the light of the religious movements both in France and the Netherlands, and in the light of his later aims and religious teaching, as unfolded in his subsequent sermons and lectures, they are of great interest and are very suggestive. While there is no evidence to tell the college or colleges he attended during the period or part of the period, it is more than certain that he had been a student in one or other of the Protestant Theological Schools either in France or Holland. In the history of his mental development it is not unimportant to know that for some time he had resided at Douay, where he had some relations connected with the Religious Orders. And here we have the first influence that modified the Calvinism amid which he was reared. He formed at Douay an intimacy with the best educated of the Roman 2 1 Vol. i. p. 244. In the subsequent days when Leighton must have felt his connexion with Lauderdale, Middleton and Sharpe as very embarrassing, and contrary to his own Christian instinct, Dr. Walter Smith thus interprets his mind in the Bishop's Walk. "O that I were in meek Douay, Among the quiet priests that pray Or 'Veni Creator.' "I may not bind me with their creed, To him whose name on earth Catholic gentlemen who were attending the college, and being fond of understanding systems different from his own, and of coming into contact with men of worth in other Churches than his own, he learned to love them in Christian charity for the goodness they possessed, and thought less rigidly of the differences that separated them." 1 A brief survey of the history of the town will show that its influence would tend to break down the narrower aspects of young Leighton's creed and give him a wider outlook through the social influence it afforded. Douai or Douay, a town in France, in the department of Le Nord on the Scarpe, grew during the middle ages into a place of commercial and industrial importance under the Counts of Flanders. It passed afterwards into the possession of the Dukes of Burgundy, fell then as an inheritance to the crown of Spain and was in 1667 conquered by France. In 1568 William Allen (afterwards Cardinal) founded there a college for the young English Catholics who were sent to the continent for the prosecution of their studies, which became the model for a similar one at Rome in 1579, that the Pope might have them more under his own eye and away from the turbulent Netherlands.2 No student was admitted into the "Nor can I say but vesper hymn, And the old chaunt in chapel dim, Sound to me as an infant's voice When Faith is young, and doth rejoice, "A voice that lingers on mine ear From bride whose Bridegroom still is near; And trembling joy, and wondering grace, Upon her bosom lying." pp. 32, 33. 1 Cf. Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen, vol. iii. p. 378. college at Douay until he pledged himself to return to England on the completion of his studies, and there preach the faith of the Roman Church. For that purpose they were exclusively prepared and were excited to religious enthusiasm by the spiritual exercises of Ignatius and the example of the missionaries sent by Pope Gregory the Great for the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons, who were set before them as models for imitation. Though supported only by private subscription, the seminaire flourished, and in a short time had one hundred and fifty scholars and ten professors. It was affiliated to the Douay University, which had been founded by Philip II, in whose dominion the town then was. It made the town the headquarters of the Englishmen living on the continent, and the hotbed of political intrigue. Campian and his colleagues Sherwin and Briant came from Douay. This gave rise to great disturbances, and after a Huguenot riot the college was compelled to move in 1578, but found an asylum at Rheims under the protection of the Duke of Guise. In 1593, however, the college returned to Douay and before its dissolution at the French Revolution it could boast that it had produced more than 30 bishops, 169 writers, while 160 of its alumni had given their lives on the gallows for the papal cause. The Douay Bible was the English version of the Bible executed by the students of the Roman Catholic College at Douay under the auspices of Cardinal Allen. The work was published at Douay in 1609, about two years before the appearance of King James' authorized Protestant Bible issued in 1611. The Douay version contains the Old Testament only, a translation of the New having been sent forth from the press at Rheims as early as 1582. The Douay version is the only one that has obtained the sanction of the Pope, and apart from its religious use, possesses an interest for philologists. There was also at Douay a Scotch College. This seminary was originally founded at Pont-à-Mousson, in Lorraine, by |