He was an ascetic in life, and his theology asserts the trampled on in all ways in your kingdom, doctrines of predestination, election, and the sacraments as its cardinal features.] When I began this work, sire, nothing was farther from my thoughts than writing a book which would afterwards be presented to your majesty. My intention was only to lay down some elementary principles by which inquirers on the subject of religion might be instructed in the nature of true piety. And this labor I undertook chiefly for my countrymen, the French, of whom I apprehend multitudes to be hungering and thirsting after Christ, but saw very few possessing any real knowledge of him. But when I perceived that the fury of certain men in your kingdom had grown to such a height as to leave no room in the land for sound doctrine, I thought I should be usefully employed if in the same work I delivered my instructions to them, and exhibited my Confession to you, that you may know the nature of that doctrine which is the object of such unbounded rage to those madmen who are now disturbing the country with fire and sword. For I shall not be afraid to acknowledge that this treatise contains a summary of that very doctrine which, according to their clamors, deserves to be punished with imprisonment, banishment, proscription, and flames, and to be exterminated from the face of the earth. I well know with what atrocious insinuations your ears have been filled by them, in order to render our cause most odious in your esteem; but your clemency should lead you to consider that if accusation be accounted a sufficient evidence of guilt, there will be an end of all innocence in words and actions. Therefore, I beseech you, sire-and surely it is not an unreasonable request to take upon yourself the entire cognizance of this cause, which has hitherto been confusedly and carelessly agitated without any order of law, and with outrageous passion rather than judicial gravity. Think not that I am now meditating my own individual defence in order to effect a safe return to my native country; for though I feel the affection which every man ought to feel for it, yet, under the existing circumstances, I regret not my removal from it. But I plead the cause of all the godly, and consequently of Christ himself, which having been in these days persecuted and VOL. IX. now lies in a deplorable state; and this indeed rather through the tyranny of certain pharisees than with your knowledge. This is a cause worthy of your attention, worthy of your cognizance, worthy of your throne. This consideration constitutes true royalty, to acknowledge yourself in the government of your kingdom to be the minister of God. For where the glory of God is not made the end of the government it is not a legitimate sovereignty but an usurpation. And he is deceived who expects lasting prosperity in that kingdom which is not ruled by the sceptre of God-that is, his holy word; for that heavenly oracle cannot fail who declares that "where there is no vision the people perish." Let not your majesty be at all moved by those groundless accusations with which our adversaries endeavor to terrify you: as, that the sole tendency and design of this new gospel-for so they call it-is to furnish a pretext for seditions and to gain impunity for all crimes. . . . . It is unjust to charge us with such motives and designs, of which we have never given cause for the least suspicion. Is it probable that we are meditating the subversion of kingdoms?—we who were never heard to utter a factious word; whose lives were ever known to be peaceable and honest while we lived under your government; and who now, even in our exile, cease not to pray for all prosperity to attend yourself and your kingdom. . . But if the gospel be made a pretext for tumultswhich has not yet happened in your kingdom; if any persons make the liberty of divine grace an excuse for the licentiousness of their vices-of whom I have known many-there are laws and legal penalties by which they may be punished according to their deserts: only let not the gospel of God be reproached for the crimes of wicked men.... But if your ears are so preoccupied with the whispers of the malevolent as to leave no opportunity for the accused to speak for themselves; and if these outrageous furies, with your connivance, continue to persecute with imprisonments, scourgings, tortures, confiscations, and flames, we shall indeed, like sheep destined to the slaughter, be reduced to the greatest extremities. Yet shall we in patience possess our souls, and wait for the mighty 208 hand of the Lord, which undoubtedly will in time appear, and show itself armed for the deliverance of the poor from their affliction, and for the punishment of their despisers, who now exult in such perfect security. May the Lord, the King of kings, establish your throne in righteousness, and your kingdom with equity. THE HUMAN MIND NATURALLY ENDUED WITH THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. We lay it down as a position not to be controverted that the human mind, even by natural instinct, possesses some sense of a deity. For that no man might shelter himself under the pretext of ignorance, God hath given to all some apprehension of his existence, the memory of which he frequently and insensibly renews; so that as men universally know that there is a God, and that he is their Maker, they must be condemned by their own testimony for not having worshipped him, and consecrated their lives to his service. If we seek for ignorance of a deity, it is nowhere more likely to be found than among tribes the most stupid and farthest from civilization. But, as the celebrated Cicero observes, there is no nation so barbarous, no race so savage, as not to be firmly persuaded of the being of a God. Even those who in other respects appear to differ but little from brutes always retain some sense of religion, so fully are the minds of men possessed with this common principle which is closely interwoven with their original composition. Now, since there has never been a country or family, from the beginning of the world, totally destitute of religion, it is a tacit confession that some sense of the divinity is inscribed on every heart. Of this opinion idolatry itself furnishes ample proof; for we know how reluctantly man would degrade him self to exalt other creatures above him.Institutes, Book I., Chap. I. JOHN CALVIN. FRENCH CHARACTERISTICS. [Victor E. Philarète-Chasles, a French historian and critic, was born in 1798 at Chartres, and died in 1873. In youth he lived seven years in England, where he superintended in Valpy's printing-office impressions of the Greek and Latin classics. In 1827 he bore off the prize for eloquence proposed by the French Academy, and soon became attached as editor to the Journal de Débats, which he never afterwards quitted, besides writing copiously for the Revue de Paris and the Revue de Deux Mondes. The principal works of M. Chasles are: Etudes de Littérature Comparée, Etudes sur l'Espagne, Etudes sur la Révolution d'Angleterre, Etudes sur l'Homme et les Moeurs, au XIXième Siècle, Etudes sur les Anglo-Américains, Voyages d'un Critique à travers la Vie et les Livres, Etudes sur l'Allemagne, and La Psychologie Sociale.] France, from the first germ of being, was not endowed with the calculating spirit-the talent for affairs, I name it. Her genius was for glory. The Celts of the ancient world were famed as brilliant adventurers. The sword, wielded by them, glittered throughout the East and West, and they were known as the most valiant of warriors. Such is the Gallic character. The Gallo-Roman, scarcely modified by parte, pointed her sabre at the base of twenty centuries' affiliation, under Bonathe pyramids. This son of the army of only for a moment. Brennus shook the capital, but it trembled tions of diverse Gauls from the North In spite of affiliaand South, who are grouped by conquest around the central country, does not France remain the same? Pre-eminently social, living with others and for others, more alive to honor than fortune, to vanable elements. We became Romans as ity than power. These are their ineffacethe Russians became French. What we borrowed, above all, from our masters, was not their discipline, but their elegance, their obedience, their oratory, and their poetry. Christianity afterwards diffused among us her sweet charities; the charm of social life was augmented. In fine, the German irruption inspired France with a taste for military prowess: but still she had a warlike garrulity, if I evinced by the narrations of our first may so style it, easy and gay, which was chroniclers and fablers. In the meantime, there was no place for the spirit of affairs. Chivalry, elsewhere serious, was with us a charming and delightful parade. At the epoch of the crusades, our seigneurs put their châteaux in pledge, and joined in the Holy Wars. In the sixteenth century, Francis I., who spent all in beautiful costumes, had not money to pay his he believed to sustain industry by the ransom. Under Henry IV., the counts | energetic men. Napoleon reigned, and sold their property, and wore their estates upon their shoulders; as said Foeneste. Under Louis XIII. we borrowed the grave courtesy of the Spaniard, his gallantry, his romantic dramas and dramatic romances. The same passion, augmented in the reign of Louis XIV., a remarkable epoch in France. Then all the ancient elements of the French character shone with intense lustre. Sociability became general, talent was honored, the clergy civilized the people, and obtained for recompense that pontificate of which Bossuet was first crowned. The fine arts satisfied the national vanity, and even our defects appeared a generous efflorescence, which consoled a people easy to console. As to good financial administration, the progress of industry, the development of the business talent in France, I sought it in vain in her history. Some partial efforts and heroic starts, little supported, seemed to betray that our nation had no aptitude for modest endeavor, and contentment with moderate success. The financial history of France is composed of a series of mad speculations. In vain Colbert and Louis XIV. pretended to foster industry. France, in servitude, possessed not the first condition. Industry, daughter of independence, was doomed to attempt her achievements in trammels. Colbert put commerce under regulations and protecting stratagems, when the invasion of France and political events extinguished her manufactures in their cradle. During the regency, many futile attempts were made to create industry. Societies were formed; galleons were expedited to the Indies. Government was the godfather and victim to the jugglery which duped itself in duping others. During all this time, England, her credit established, founded free corporations, under the enlightened reign of William the Third. Later, in France, the combination of riches and labor could do nothing. Voltaire, Diderot, and all the learned men, thought only of destroying the rotten social organization. From 1789 to 1793 their previsions were justified, and their efforts responded to. Soon followed the fourteen years of the republic-the maximum and the guillotine. Nothing of all this could create a healthy industry, but the spoliations turned to the profit of She possesses exactly the contrary elements. France was in a chaotic state-a fusion of all ranks-no social basis, no principle, no conviction, but in a morbid state of exhaustion and weariness. There was no centre in society, no point to lean upon. Each man was his own centre, as he might and could be. Scarcely had one obtained an individuality, by riches, by credit, or fame, to be able to form a group of individualities impregnated with his principles, than, the apprenticeship served, these satellites would detach themselves, and form centres in their turn. They called that independence, but it was dissolution. There is such liberty, when the elements of the body are scattered in the tomb. From 1825 to 1840, there were everywhere little centres, without force, sufficient attraction, or radiation. There had not been, since Napoleon, one centre, political, intellectual, moral, which had the least solidity-a theory that was complete, a light which was not vacillating.Notabilities in France and England. A SIMPLE HOUSEHOLD. [Victor Cherbuliez, one of the most popular of the modern novelists of France, was born in 1828 at Geneva. He began to write early in life for the Revue de Deux Mondes, in which appeared a long series of his romances, from 1863 to the present time. Among his best known works are: Le Comte Kostia (1863); Le Prince Vitale (1864); Meta Holdenis (1873); Miss Rovel (1875); Samuel Brohl et Cie. (1876); Jean Têterol (1878); and Le Revanche de Joseph Noirel (1880). Cherbuliez also contributed largely to the journal Le Temps articlesof criticism and biography, as well as political comments. He was elected to the French Academy i 1882.] One day we took a long horseback-ride. |