edition is to be found in the first; the theology of the one is the theology of the other-the Calvin of 1559 is the Calvin of 1536. The fact that at the age of twenty-six Calvin could publish a system of theology at once so original and so profound a system, moreover, which with all his activity of intellect and love of truth he never had occasion to modify in any essential particular-is one of the most striking phenomena in the history of the human mind; and yet it is but one of many illustrations of the man's marvelous clearness and comprehensiveness of vision, and of his force and decision of character. His life from beginning to end was the consistent unfolding of a single dominant principle-the unwavering pursuit of a single controlling purpose. From his earliest youth the sense of duty was all-supreme with him; he lived under a constant imperative—in awe of, and in reverent obedience to, the will of a sovereign God; and his theology is but the translation into language of that experience; its translation by one of the world's greatest masters of logical thought and of clear speech.

Calvin's great work was accompanied by a dedicatory epistle addressed to King Francis I., which is by common consent one of the finest specimens of courteous and convincing apology in existence. A brief extract from it will be found in the selections given below.

Soon after the publication of the Institutes,' Calvin's plans for a quiet literary career were interrupted by a peremptory call to assist in the work of reforming the Church and State of Geneva; and the remainder of his life, with the exception of a brief interval of exile, was spent in that city, at the head of a religious movement whose influence was ultimately felt throughout all Western Europe. It is true that Calvin was not the originating genius of the Reformation — that he belonged only to the second generation of reformers, and that he learned the Protestant faith from Luther. But he became for the peoples of Western Europe what Luther was for Germany, and he gave his own peculiar type of Protestantism-that type which was congenial to his disposition and experience-to Switzerland, to France, to the Netherlands, to Scotland, and through the Dutch, the English Puritans, and the Scotch Presbyterians, to large portions of the New World. Calvin, to be sure, is not widely popular to-day even in those lands which owe him most, for he had little of that human sympathy which glorifies the best thought and life of the present age; but for all that, he has left his mark upon the world, and his influence is not likely ever to be wholly outgrown. His emphasis upon God's holiness made his followers scrupulously, even censoriously pure; his emphasis upon God's will made them stern and unyielding in the performance of what they believed to be their duty; his emphasis upon God's majesty, paradoxical

though it may seem at first sight, promoted in no small degree the growth of civil and religious liberty, for it dwarfed all mere human authority and made men bold to withstand the unlawful encroachments of their fellows. Thus Calvin became a mighty force in the world, though he gave the world far more of law than of gospel, far more of Moses than of Christ.

Calvin's career as a writer began at an early day and continued until his death. His pen was a ready one and was seldom idle. In the midst of the most engrossing cares and occupations—the cares and occupations of a preacher, a pastor, a teacher of theology, a statesman, and a reformer to whom the Protestants of many lands looked for inspiration and for counsel-he found time, though he died at the early age of fifty-four, to produce works that to-day fill more than threescore volumes, and all of which bear the unmistakable impress of a great mind. In addition to his 'Institutes,' theological and ethical tracts, and treatises, serinons, and epistles without number, he wrote commentaries upon almost all the books of the Bible; which for lucidity, for wide and accurate learning, and for sound and ripe judgment, have never been surpassed. Among the most characteristic and important of his briefer works are his vigorous and effective 'Reply to Cardinal Sadolet,' who had endeavored after Calvin's exile from Geneva in 1539 to win back the Genevese to the Roman Church; his tract on The Necessity of Reforming the Church; presented to the Imperial Diet at Spires, A. D. 1544, in the cause of all who wish with Christ to reign'—an admirable statement of the conditions which had made a reformation of the Church imperatively necessary, and had led to the great religious and ecclesiastical revolution; another tract on The True Method of Giving Peace to Christendom and Reforming the Church,'-marked by a beautiful Christian spirit and permeated with sound practical sense; still another containing Articles Agreed Upon by the Faculty of Sacred Theology at Paris, with the Antidote'; and finally an 'Admonition Showing the Advantages which Christendom might Derive from an Inventory of Relics.' Though Calvin was from boyhood up of a most serious turn of mind, and though his writings, in marked contrast to the writings of Luther, exhibit few if any traces of genial spontaneous humor, the last two works show that he knew how to employ satire on occasion in a very telling way for the overthrow of error and for the discomfiture of his opponents.

In addition to the services which Calvin rendered by his writings to the cause of Christianity and of sacred learning, must be recognized the lasting obligation under which as an author he put his mother tongue. Whether he wrote in Latin or in French, his style was always chaste, elegant, clear, and vigorous. His Latin compares

favorably with the best models of antiquity; his French is a new creation. The latter language indeed owes almost as much to Calvin as the German language owes to Luther. He was unquestionably its greatest master in the sixteenth century, and he did more than any one else to fix its permanent character-to give it that exactness, that lucidity, that purity and harmony of which it justly boasts.

Calvin's writings bear throughout the imprint of his character. There appears in all of them the same horror of impurity and dishonor, the same stern sense of duty, the same respect for the sovereignty of the Almighty, the same severe judgment of human failings. To read them is to breathe the tonic air of snow-clad heights; but they are seldom if ever touched with the tender glow of human feeling or transfigured with the radiance of creative imagination. There is that in David, in Isaiah, in Paul, in Luther, which appeals to every heart and makes their words immortal; but Calvin was neither poet nor prophet,-the divine afflatus was not his, and it is not without reason that his writings, vigorous, forceful, profound, as is their context, and pure and elegant as is their style, are read to-day only by theologians or historians.

Arthur Cushman Menipput

PREFATORY ADDRESS TO THE INSTITUTES›

FRANCIS, KING OF THE FRENCH, the most Christian Majesty, the most Mighty and Illustrious Monarch, his Sovereign,John Calvin prays peace and salvation in Christ.

Sire: - When I first engaged in this work, nothing was further from my thoughts than to write what should afterwards be presented to your Majesty. My intention was only to furnish a kind of rudiments, by which those who feel some interest in religion might be trained to true godliness. And I toiled at the task chiefly for the sake of my countrymen the French, multitudes of whom I perceived to be hungering and thirsting after Christ, while very few seemed to have been duly imbued with even a slender knowledge of him. That this was the object which I had in view is apparent from the work itself, which is written in a simple and elementary form, adapted for instruction.

But when I perceived that the fury of certain bad men had risen to such a height in your realm that there was no place in it for sound doctrine, I thought it might be of service if I were in the same work both to give instruction to my countrymen, and also lay before your Majesty a Confession, from which you may learn what the doctrine is that so inflames the rage of those madmen who are this day with fire and sword troubling your kingdom. For I fear not to declare that what I have here given may be regarded as a summary of the very doctrine which, they vociferate, ought to be punished with confiscation, exile, imprisonment, and flames, as well as exterminated by land and sea.

I am aware indeed how, in order to render our cause as hateful to your Majesty as possible, they have filled your ears and mind with atrocious insinuations; but you will be pleased of your clemency to reflect that neither in word nor deed could there be any innocence, were it sufficient merely to accuse. When any one, with the view of exciting prejudice, observes that this doctrine of which I am endeavoring to give your Majesty an account has been condemned by the suffrages of all the estates, and was long ago stabbed again and again by partial sentences of courts of law, he undoubtedly says nothing more than that it has sometimes been violently oppressed by the power and faction of adversaries, and sometimes fraudulently and insidiously overwhelmed by lies, cavils, and calumny. While a cause is unheard, it is violence to pass sanguinary sentences against it; it is fraud to charge it, contrary to its deserts, with sedition and mischief.

That no one may suppose we are unjust in thus complaining, you yourself, most illustrious Sovereign, can bear us witness with what lying calumnies it is daily traduced in your presence; as aiming at nothing else than to wrest the sceptres of kings out of their hands, to overturn all tribunals and seats of justice, to subvert all order and government, to disturb the peace and quiet of society, to abolish all laws, destroy the distinctions. of rank and property, and in short turn all things upside down. And yet that which you hear is but the smallest portion of what is said; for among the common people are disseminated certain horrible insinuations- insinuations which, if well founded, would justify the whole world in condemning the doctrine with its authors to a thousand fires and gibbets. Who can wonder that

the popular hatred is inflamed against it, when credit is given to those most iniquitous accusations? See why all ranks unite with one accord in condemning our persons and our doctrine!

Carried away by this feeling, those who sit in judgment merely give utterance to the prejudices which they have imbibed at home, and think they have duly performed their part if they do not order punishment to be inflicted on any one until convicted, either on his own confession, or on legal evidence. But of what crime convicted? "Of that condemned doctrine," is the answer. But with what justice condemned? The very evidence of the defense was not to abjure the doctrine itself, but to maintain its truth. On this subject, however, not a whisper is allowed.

It is plain indeed that we fear God sincerely and worship him in truth, since, whether by life or by death, we desire his name to be hallowed; and hatred herself has been forced to bear testimony to the innocence and civil integrity of some of our people, on whom death was inflicted for the very thing which deserved the highest praise. But if any, under pretext of the gospel, excite tumults (none such have as yet been detected in your realm), if any use the liberty of the grace of God as a cloak for licentiousness (I know of numbers who do), there are laws and legal punishments by which they may be punished up to the measure of their deserts; only in the mean time let not the gospel of God be evil spoken of because of the iniquities of evil

men.

Sire, that you may not lend too credulous an ear to the accusations of our enemies, their virulent injustice has been set before you at sufficient length: I fear even more than sufficient, since this preface has grown almost to the bulk of a full apology. My object however was not to frame a defense, but only with a view to the hearing of our cause, to mollify your mind, now indeed turned away and estranged from us,-I add, even inflamed against us, but whose good will, we are confident, we should regain, would you but once with calmness and composure read this our Confession, which we desire your Majesty to accept. instead of a defense. But if the whispers of the malevolent so possess your ear that the accused are to have no opportunity of pleading their cause; if those vindictive furies, with your connivance, are always to rage with bonds, scourgings, tortures, maimings, and burnings-we indeed, like sheep doomed to