Histoire des Celtes

...traveled to Berlin to be among the number of Candidates destined to obtain the Churches that become vacant in the States of his Majesty. During the time that passed until his establishment, Mr. Pelloutier took advantage of a very precious opportunity to acquire the most solid knowledge, and that most suitable to his destination; he drew it from a source that has been long open for the good of Letters and the Church. I mean to speak of the instructions that Mr. Lenfant (*) granted to young Theologians. It was a signal advantage, for those who knew how to profit from it, to be at the feet of this Gamaliel A biblical reference to a great teacher. The most refined common sense, the most extensive and well-digested knowledge, a clarity of mind, a force of judgment, a delicacy of critique, a nervous style, a masculine eloquence, were so many qualities found in the highest degree in this great man, and he took pleasure in producing them, or developing them in those who turned to his direction. Mr. Pelloutier was one of the principal Disciples of Mr. Lenfant, whose expectations he even surpassed. Running the same career with Fellow Students whom nature seemed to have treated with some predilection, he reached them, he passed them; and in the sequence, by dint of application, he left them far behind him. This trait reveals his character in advance, and the principle of all his successes. Strongly attached to everything he made his object, Mr. Pelloutier found by this way resources, and attained a superiority, which did him all the more honor as, by sheltering him from all dissipation, they rendered his life perfectly conformed to his state.

The Church of Buchholtz, situated one mile from Berlin, requested Mr. Pelloutier to succeed Mr. de Beausobre, who was then leaving it to go to Hamburg. Mr. Lenfant had the joy of consecrating to the service of the Altars this worthy Disciple, to whom he gave the imposition of hands at Buchholtz, on July 21, 1715. Four years passed in this first Church in a very useful manner for the young Pastor. At the gates of the Capital, he took advantage of all the help it could provide him to continue to form himself; one well understands that the principal of these helps was always the same Oracle who had until then guided him so well. Thus he was soon counted among the small number of choice subjects, to whose ministry the great Churches have a kind of right.

The church of Magdeburg availed itself of its right, by deferring to him in 1719 one of the positions of the French Church of that City. He accepted it, and fulfilled there a new career of six years. It was then that, charged with the care of a numerous Flock, with functions much more extensive and painful, all of Mr. Pelloutier’s capacity for the conduct of Churches, that great activity, that indefatigable assiduity which we have seen sustained in him until the end, developed in their full light, and gave an example as beautiful as it is rare, of a Pastor entirely devoted to his functions. This man exercised his with an ardor to which the name of greed perhaps does not ill apply. The ten years passed at Buchholtz and at Magdeburg provided yet another great advantage to Mr. Pelloutier; he made a mass of materials, a provision of Sermons, which contributed greatly to the ease and accuracy with which he fulfilled his functions during the rest of his life; only severe indispositions prevented him from mounting the Pulpit every time his turn called him there.

Such a Clergyman is too great a treasure not to be the object of the desires of several Churches. That of Leipzig was among them: the proximity of Magdeburg had put it in a position to be exactly informed of the high esteem that Mr. Pelloutier had acquired there. By opening to him, if I dare say it, the bosom of his mother, by recalling him to the place that had seen him born, it believed it was offering him an attraction which it would not be possible to resist: after having lost Mr. Dumont, who finished his days in Rotterdam, it made strong instances to Mr. Pelloutier to engage him to grant it his Ministry; but he held by too strong ties to the Churches of our Regions; the touching marks of affection he had received from them and which he received every day did not permit him to resolve to leave them. He contented himself therefore with testifying all his gratitude to the Church of Leipzig, and continuing his tenderness to that of Magdeburg; the latter had been vividly alarmed in the fear of losing its Pastor.

Footnote at bottom of left column:
(*) Jacques Lenfant is well enough known by his Histories of the Councils of Constance, Pisa, and Basel. Such were the Masters of our Author: Turretin, Pictet, etc. Lenfant: One can judge the knowledge he acquired at the school of these famous men, truly worthy of directing others in the path of virtue and in the study of things useful to Society.