he themes
ennobled the language, the language was never allowed to degrade the
themes. And there was no tongue and no people that he influenced more
than the French. Calvin made Bossuet and Massillon possible; as a
preacher he found his successor in Bourdaloue; and a literary critic who
does not love him has expressed a doubt as to whether Pascal could be
more eloquent or was so profound. And the ideal then realized in Geneva
exercised an influence far beyond France. It extended into Holland,
which in the strength of the reformed faith resisted Charles V and his
son, achieved independence, and created the freest and best educated
state on the continent of Europe.

John Knox breathed for a while the atmosphere of Geneva, was subdued
into the likeness of the man who had made it, and when he went home he
copied its education and tried to repeat its reformation. English
reformers, fleeing from martyrdom, found a refuge within its hospitable
walls, and, returning to England, attempted to establish a Genevan
discipline, and failed, but succeeded in forming the Puritan character.
If the author of the _Ordonnances ecclesiastiques_ accomplished, whether
directly or indirectly, so much, we need not hesitate to term him a
notable friend to civilization.

JEAN M. V. AUDIN

When the sword of the law fell upon one of his followers, the voice of
Luther was magnificent; it exclaimed, in the ears of emperors, kings,
and dukes, "You have shed the blood of the just," and then the Saxon, in
honor of the martyr, extemporized a hymn which was chanted in the very
face of the civil power:

"In the Low Countries, at Brussels,
The Lord his greatness hath displayed,
In the death of two of his loved children
On whom grand gifts he had bestowed."

Calvin had not the courage to imitate Luther. He has told us that he
wanted courage; he again repeats it: he says that he, a plebeian,
trifling as a man, and having but little learning, has nothing in him
which could deserve celebrity. And yet he essayed a timid protest in
favor of certain Huguenots who had been burned on the public square.
"The work," says Prince Masson, "of a double-faced writer, a Catholic in
his writings and a Lutheran in his bedchamber."

This is his first book. It is entitled _de Clementia_ (or _Treatise on
Clemency_), and is a paraphrase of some Latin writer of the decline.
Moreover, this is the first time that a commentator is ignorant of the
life of him