ch in the south
of Europe excited more attention. As early as 1531, long before the
rise of the Socinians, the Spaniard Servetus taught anti-Trinitarianism,
and continued to do it for more than twenty years. He remained
isolated, and it was not until after his death that his opinions
attracted followers. Calvin, who thought him dangerous, both by
his doctrines and his talent, declared that if ever he came to
Geneva he would never leave it alive. He caused him to be denounced
to the Inquisition, and he was imprisoned at Vienne on the Rhone,
tried, and condemned to be burnt at a slow fire, on evidence supplied
by Calvin in seventeen letters. Servetus escaped, and on his way to
Italy stopped at Geneva, under a false name, for he knew who it was
that had set the machinery of the Holy Office in motion against him,
and who had said that he deserved to be burnt wherever he could be
found. He was recognised, and Calvin caused him to be arrested and
tried without a defender. The authorities at Vienne demanded his
extradition, and the Governor of Dauphiny requested that any money
Servetus had about him might be sent back to him, as he was to have
had it if the execution had occurred in his territory. Calvin
disputed with his prisoner, convicted him of heresy, and claimed to
have convicted him of Pantheism, and he threatened to leave Geneva if
Servetus was not condemned. The Council did not think that the errors
of a Spanish scholar who was on his way to Italy were any business of
theirs, and they consulted the Swiss churches, hoping to be relieved
of a very unpleasant responsibility. The Swiss divines pronounced
against Servetus, and he was sentenced to die by fire, although Calvin
wished to mitigate the penalty, but refused, at a last interview, the
Spaniard's appeal for mercy. The volume which cost Servetus his life
was burnt with him, but falling from his neck into the flames, it was
snatched from the burning, and may still be seen in its singed
condition, a ghastly memorial of Reformation ethics, in the National
Library at Paris.

The event at Geneva received the sanction of many leading divines,
both of Switzerland and Germany; and things had moved so far since
Luther was condemned for his toleration, that Melanchthon could not
imagine the possibility of a doubt. Hundreds of humble Anabaptists
had suffered a like fate and nobody minded. But the story of the
execution at Champel left an indelible and unforgotten