y with modern scientific philosophy, and much in it, too,
that the descendants of his Puritan converts have learned to loathe as
sheer diabolism. It is hard for us to forgive the man who burned Michael
Servetus, even though it was the custom of the time to do such things
and the tender-hearted Melanchthon found nothing to blame in it. It is
not easy to speak of Calvin with enthusiasm, as it comes natural to
speak of the genial, whole-souled, many-sided, mirth-and-song-loving
Luther. Nevertheless it would be hard to overrate the debt which mankind
owe to Calvin. The spiritual father of Coligny, of William the Silent,
and of Cromwell must occupy a foremost rank among the champions of
modern democracy. Perhaps not one of the mediaeval popes was more
despotic in temper than Calvin; but it is not the less true that the
promulgation of his theology was one of the longest steps that mankind
have taken toward personal freedom. Calvinism left the individual man
alone in the presence of his God. His salvation could not be wrought by
priestly ritual, but only by the grace of God abounding in his soul; and
wretched creature that he felt himself to be, through the intense moral
awakening of which this stern theology was in part the expression, his
soul was nevertheless of infinite value, and the possession of it was
the subject of an everlasting struggle between the powers of heaven and
the powers of hell. In presence of the awful responsibility of life, all
distinctions of rank and fortune vanished; prince and pauper were alike
the helpless creatures of Jehovah and suppliants for his grace. Calvin
did not originate these doctrines; in announcing them he was but setting
forth, as he said, the Institutes of the Christian religion; but in
emphasizing this aspect of Christianity, in engraving it upon men's
minds with that keen-edged logic which he used with such unrivalled
skill, Calvin made them feel, as it had perhaps never been felt before,
the dignity and importance of the individual human soul. It was a
religion fit to inspire men who were to be called upon to fight for
freedom, whether in the marshes of the Netherlands or on the moors of
Scotland. In a church, moreover, based upon such a theology there was
no room for prelacy. Each single church tended to become an independent
congregation of worshippers, constituting one of the most effective
schools that has ever existed for training men in local self-government.
[Sidenote: Calvi