
It was in small extra-curricular groups led by Haldane, that Merle d'Aubigné and his peers studied the Bible according to church historian John Carrick, no classes were offered in the Christian scriptures at the school at that time, their having been replaced by the ancient Greek scholars.

He was profoundly influenced by Robert Haldane, the Scottish missionary and preacher who visited Geneva and became a leading light in Le Réveil, a conservative Protestant evangelical movement. The life Jean-Henri's parents chose for him was in commerce but in college at the Académie de Genève, he instead decided on Christian ministry. The ancestors of his father Robert Merle d'Aubigné (1755–1799), were French Protestant refugees. Jean-Henri Merle d'Aubigné was born at Eaux Vives, a neighbourhood of Geneva. Jean-Henri Merle d'Aubigné (16 August 1794 – 21 October 1872) was a Swiss Protestant minister and historian of the Reformation.
