Gasparin, Aganor, Comte De

Gasparin, Aganor, Comte de an eminent layman of the French Protestant Church, was born at Orange (France), July 12, 1810. He studied law at Paris and took an active part in French politics, and in 1842 he represented Bastia in the House of Deputies. Religious subjects, however, engrossed a iarge share of his attention. In 1843 he published Interets Generaux du Protestantisme

Francais, and in 1846 Christianisme et Paganisme (2 volumes). In 1848 he attended the general synod of the Reformed churches of France, and maintained with Frederick Monod the necessity of a well-defined creed for that Church. The last twenty-three years of his life he spent in Switzerland, and there he wrote his Les Ecoles du Doute et l'Ecole de la Foi: — Un Grand Peuple qui se Releve (1861): — L'Amerique' devant l'Europe (1862), directed against slavery. He also delivered lectures on religious topics, and in every way promoted the cause of religion. He died May 8, 1871. Some of his works were also translated into German, and of his L'Amerique devant l'Europe an English translation was published in New York (3d ed. 1863). See Maville, Le Comte Ag. de Gasparin (Geneva, 1871); Borel, Le Comte Ag. de Gasparin (Paris, 1879; Engl. transl. N.Y. 1880); Lichtenberger, Encyclop. des Sciences Religieuses, s.v.; Zuchold, Bibl. Theol. 1:400. (B.P.)