humanity," was the great guiding idea of him who taught that out of the
mass of human kind only a predestined remnant could possibly be saved.
It is a singular interpretation of the mind of the author of the
_Institutes_:--

The distinction of Calvin as a Reformer is not to be sought in the
doctrine which now bears his name, or in any doctrinal peculiarity.
His great merit lies _in his comparative neglect of dogma. He
seized the idea of reformation as a real renovation of human
character_. The moral purification of humanity as the original
idea of Christianity is the guiding idea of his system.... He
swept away at once the sacramental machinery of material media of
salvation which the middle-age Church had provided in such
abundance, and which Luther frowned upon, but did not reject. He
was not satisfied to go back only to the historical origin of
Christianity, but would found human virtue on the eternal
antemundane will of God.

Again:--

Calvin thought neither of fame or fortune. The narrowness of his
views and the disinterestedness of his soul alike precluded him
from regarding Geneva as a stage for the gratification of personal
ambition. This abegnation of self was one great part of his
success.

And then Mr. Pattison goes on to describe in detail how, governed and
possessed by one idea, and by a theory, to oppose which was "moral
depravity," he proceeded to establish his intolerable system of
discipline, based on dogmatic grounds--meddlesome, inquisitorial,
petty, cruel--over the interior of every household in Geneva. What is
there fascinating, or even imposing, in such a character? It is the
common case of political and religious bigots, whether Jacobin, or
Puritan, or Jesuit, poor in thought and sympathy and strong in will,
fixing their yoke on a society, till the plague becomes unbearable. He
seeks nothing for himself and, forsooth, he makes sacrifices. But he
gets what he wants, his idea carried out; and self-sacrifice is of what
we care for, and not of what we do not care for. And to keep up this
supposed character of high moral purpose, we are told of Calvin's
"comparative neglect of dogma," of his seizing the idea of a "real
reformation of human character," a "moral purification of humanity," as
the guiding idea of his system. Can anything be more unhistorical than
to suggest that the father and source of all Western Puritan theology
"